


Spurious Serpent

by Sinnatious



Series: Fallacious Deities [2]
Category: Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Genre: Dimension Travel, Dissidia Duodecim, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 01:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18955360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinnatious/pseuds/Sinnatious
Summary: Sequel to Fallacious Deity. With both Chaos and Cosmos dead, the surviving warriors try to find a way home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I never finished or posted this sooner because I was never satisfied by the quality of it or the direction it went, nor felt the need for it to exist beyond being some sort of bridge between Fallacious Deity and all of the 'returning home' prompts I got from all the giftfics back in the day. I don't like doing sequels and this fic 100% exemplifies why. There's not much to this beyond a bit of very old, un-betaed wordspew that I'm posting half because Dissidia NT has made the Dissidia lore even more head-hurty, and half to get it out of my head to make room for new and hopefully better things. So it's pretty unpolished and very rough and slapdash, as fair warning. Also took some liberties with the Confessions of a Creator timeline because even back in Duodecim era, the lore had become unreasonably messy.
> 
> Recommend reading Fallacious Deity first, or this might not make much sense. Cloud, as before, gets the unfair distribution of awesome. Also not compliant with NT storyline - I still haven't played much of that version.
> 
> Hopefully, with expectations now tempered, somebody enjoys the fic!

 

 

Grey clouds swirled like smoke across a permanently dusky sky. Rolling hills clothed in sickly green grass and patches of dull rock stretched out before them, intersected by shallow streams and the occasional set of decrepit stone columns.

It was utterly silent, save for the murmur of wind and distant gush of water.

And occasionally, very occasionally, the tromping of boots on earth, and the clash of steel on crystal.

As the manikin crumbled into shards of quartz, Cloud hefted the Buster Sword back to its customary spot on his shoulder. Five other warriors gathered around, each vigilant, though there was little need to be. Aside from the ever-rarer manikin, Cornelia Plains was quiet, tranquil and most of all… empty.

"Hmph. Nothing except manikins and moogles," Squall muttered.

Terra clasped a hand to her chest, staring into the distance. “It’s so…”

“Boring!” Tidus interrupted, kicking a blitzball in front of him. “We’ve been walking around for  _weeks_  already. Come  _on_!” He let loose a piercing whistle that made Cloud wince, as though the sound could actually summon a magical chariot to cross dimensions.

“Be serious,” Onion Knight lectured, hands on his hips and helmet plumes swaying in the breeze.

“I  _am_  being serious,” Tidus replied with an eye roll and easy smile. How he could grin like that after everything that had happened… “Don’t tell me I’m the only one sick of cleaning up manikins!”

Squall muttered something that might have been agreement. Cecil remained quiet, off to the side. He typically didn’t contribute unless prompted. He wore the guilt over Golbez’s ultimately pointless sacrifice like an invisible armour, and nothing – not even Tidus’s antics – could easily breach it.

The six of them had wandered the southern continent somewhat aimlessly since Cosmos’s demise, destroying what few lingering manikins remained. At first, it had simply been a matter of waiting-and-seeing, after Shinryuu’s fiery tail had lashed the sky and the bodies of the fallen vanished. But when Cosmos didn’t reappear, and neither did their fallen comrades, born anew…

Cloud was used to being alone, but never had the world seemed quite so sparse before. Six, out of what had once been two dozen, forty, a hundred.

“-What do you think?”

He blinked, having lost track of the conversation at some point, to find everyone looking at him expectantly. “About what?”

Squall huffed, scowling at his inattention. “About what we should try next,” Terra explained softly, acting as peacemaker.

“You still know this world best,” Onion Knight reasoned. “If anyone’s going to have an idea, it’ll be you.”

There was some truth to that. Cloud mulled it over for a moment. “…Maybe we should try talking to the moogles.”

Terra’s eyes lit up, and Onion Knight frowned. “Moogles? Would  _they_  really know anything?”

It was a fair point – As a general rule, moogles weren’t the brightest bunch, and rarely seemed capable of looking beyond their own bobbles.

“They were here even when I first turned up,” Cloud said. “And they gossip, and dealt with both sides. They might know something.”

“It’s a good idea,” Cecil said softly into the following silence.

Tidus shrugged. “I guess we don’t have anything else to do. Let’s get going.”

Squall’s scowl deepened, but he came along anyway. “Tch. Whatever.”

 

………………

 

It didn’t take that long to find a moogle. If Squall hadn’t heard otherwise, he would have thought they were territorial creatures – he’d never seen two together, and they always tended to roam the same areas.

The moogle in question ambled in a lazy circle of eight around the remains of what had probably once been a gateway. When they approached, his flight grew erratic, tiny little bat wings fluttering so fast they were almost a blur.   
  
"Oooh, customers, kupo! You ought to buy something, kupo!"  
  
It said something very profound about moogles that in the face of total desolation, the first thing they worried about was profits.

“Moglin?” Terra asked with an unusually bright smile and stars in her eyes. Squall eyed her dubiously. Who could tell moogles  _apart_?

“Uhhhh, yeah, that’s me, kupo. You’ve got good eyes, lady! Did you hear about my great store? It’s still kind of small, but I’m building it up, kupo!”

With what? Near as Squall could tell, they were the only customers in the whole damn world.

“I’m sure it will be great!” Terra said earnestly. “But we were hoping you could answer some questions…”

Tidus grinned, and at Squall’s glance, whispered, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this excited, hey.”

It was embarrassing, really. Or maybe a girl thing. At least it meant they could leave the interrogation to her. Provided she didn’t lose track and start cuddling the thing, or trading all the materials in their pockets for pebbles.

It was probably just a waste of time, anyway.

While Terra sweet-talked the moogle, Squall kept an eye out for manikins, or anything else out of the ordinary. Until recently, this world had been about survival. And survival had, like it or not, meant fighting with numbers, and always,  _always_ , watching your back.

Cecil lingered on the edge, as usual. Squall didn’t really get the guy – hadn’t had much to do with him in the one cycle he could remember. He’d dealt mostly with Zidane and Bartz and the Warrior of Light – all of whom had bit the dust. He tried not to think about it. Casualties of war were to be expected, and grief was unproductive.

Who did that leave him with, though? Some bratty know-it-all kid. A timid girl. Tidus was annoying too, always cheerful and never seeming to take anything seriously, even after everything that happened. And then there was that Cloud guy, also hanging back, watching everything with those creepy glowing eyes of his.

Squall didn’t trust him. They’d fought on the same side when the gauntlet had been thrown down, but that didn’t count. He’d been with Chaos. And he was strong, too. All the more reason to be careful.

"What about the Mured Moogle, kupo?" Terra had apparently made some headway.

Onion Knight cocked his head in thought. “Mured Moogle?”

“Yeah! He’s not like the other moogles, kupo! He’s real smart, kupo!”

“Well, where is he then?” Tidus prodded, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet, like an athlete warming up for a sprint.

“I have no idea kupo!”

Squall wanted to drown himself. Anything to get away from these idiots.

His glare apparently pierced even the haze of greed and bubble of confusion the moogle cheerily flew in. “Oh, uh, but one of the other moogles might know, kupo! Don’t hurt me, kupoooo!”

Terra clapped her hands, looking faintly delighted by the prospect.

Great. Now it looked like they were going moogle hunting.

What a waste of time.

 

…………

 

Cloud revelled in a long, internal sigh.

The Southern Islands were large, and many of the teleport crystals had gone dull and unresponsive. So they were often stuck to travelling by foot, which would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact that moogles apparently had some great big aversion to sharing retail space with each other and so spread themselves ridiculously far apart. It was, at  _best_ , a minimum of a day’s travel between them.

At least Terra was enjoying herself.

“Hey, hey lady! Go easy on the fur would you? Kupoooooooo.”

Onion Knight and Tidus seemed to be, too. Onion Knight most likely because anything that made Terra happy made him happy, and Tidus… Cloud hadn’t quite figured that out, yet. Tidus had been moody for the first few days after… after  _everything_ , but he’d bounced back surprisingly quickly. Too quickly, even. Cecil was still grieving for Golbez, who’d died much earlier – how was it that Tidus could brush aside his father’s death so easily?

Not that Cloud _minded_  – he was grateful, in fact. He just didn’t quite understand.

“The Mured Moogle? Can’t say I know much, kupo. Hey, you gonna buy something or what?”

Honestly speaking, he didn’t understand much about his current companions. They’d been travelling together for weeks now, and he still didn’t.

It didn’t matter, though, so long as they could find a way home.

“I heard there’s a  _really_  deep gateway near Melmond Fens,” the latest moogle – Cloud had already forgotten his name – said. “Maybe the Mured Moogle’s there, kupo?”

Terra hugged the moogle tight to her chest – was it his imagination, or did both the moogle  _and_  Onion Knight start blushing? “Thank you! You’ve been a big help.”

They convened in a loose circle once they were out of the moogle’s sight. “What do you think?” Onion Knight asked. “This deep gateway sounds kind of suspicious.”

Cloud looked off into the distance. "We should probably check it out." In his experience, deep gateways were usually inhabited – most members of Chaos’s ranks would choose one and make it their base throughout the cycle, seeking comfort and familiarity in reflections of their home dimension. Cloud himself had used them more than once for hiding, back when the world was fuller and it felt like he couldn’t cross an open space without being beset by an enemy.

Squall scowled. "We should be finding a way home. How sure are we this isn’t another cactuar-chase?” Cloud was briefly distracted by the realisation that cactuars, or at least some variant of them, were common to  _all_  of their words, given the lack of request for clarification. “The moogles haven’t exactly been helpful so far.”

Cecil hesitated, and then quietly remarked, “Melmond Fens  _is_  quite a ways from here...”

The Melmond region was a rather secluded part of the southern islands, far to the west, surrounded by water and the mountain range home the Cavern of Earth. There weren’t many safe routes to get there – the path would invariably involve passing through numerous gateways, any of which could contain lingering manikins. They were looking at close to a fortnight’s journey, assuming they didn’t find any functioning crystals to speed their way.

Tidus shrugged. “Does it matter? Not like we’re in a rush or have a time limit, right? What does it hurt?” He sounded genuinely  _cheerful_  about it.

That appeared to only make Squall  _angrier_. “Are you even taking this seriously?” He didn’t raise his voice, but his words were as sharp as his gunblade. “Do you  _want_  to stay in this hellhole?”

The blitzballer stiffened, and a moment too late to be natural, turned offended. “I just don’t see the point in getting uptight about it! We don’t have any better leads, and we’re not on the clock! If we’ve really been here as long as  _he_  says-” Tidus threw his hand in Cloud’s direction. “-then what the hell does a few more weeks matter, huh?”

Squall’s glare could have frozen magma. The others had fallen uncomfortably silent as the blitzballer and gunblader faced off. Cloud wondered if he was going to have to break up a fight, or if he’d be better off just letting them both at it.

It turned out to be neither. Abruptly, Squall turned on his heel. “That does it. I’m out.”

“What?!” Onion Knight exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m through with this. You can waste your time hunting moogles. I’ll find a way home  _myself_.”

“But… you can’t just leave!” Onion Knight sputtered. “Shouldn’t we be sticking together? For safety?”

Squall scoffed. “Safety from what? There’s nothing dangerous  _left_  aside from us.” He pointed his blade at Cloud – Cloud, for his part, shifted to allow quick access to his sword, but didn’t take the gesture as a threat. “ _This_ guy is probably your biggest worry. Makes more sense to strike out on your own, at this point.”

“Hey, it’s thanks to him Chaos even died in the first place!” Tidus defended. Cloud just remained silent. He had no place in this discussion.

Squall frowned, hoisting his gunblade back on his shoulder. “Whatever. I’m done. Good luck chasing moogles.” And with those pointed words, Squall stalked away, bomber jacket ruffled by the cool breeze.

“Wait, Squall!” Onion Knight pleaded, looking to the rest of them in disbelief.

Tidus shrugged, the motion jerky with anger. “What do you want us to do, squirt? He’s obviously made up this mind.”

Terra hesitated, biting her lip. “Maybe someone should go with him?”

Cloud eyed the leather-clad figure heading into the distance.

With this stunt, he thought he might have understood Squall a little better. A lone-wolf type.

Except wolves were pack creatures at heart. But Squall could figure it out for himself later. Even Cloud wasn’t hypocritical enough to lecture anyone about  _that_.

“It’s up to you,” he said. “But I think he’ll be fine. If we find the Mured Moogle, I’m sure we’ll be able to meet up with him again.” Cloud turned west, and started walking.

One by one, the others picked up to trail him – Terra and Onion Knight sending one last worried glance at Squall’s retreating back before hurrying to catch up, Cecil drifting behind them. Tidus remained for several long moments, face turned to the sky, eyes closed, fists clenched, but before they got too far away, turned to follow.

A strained silence floated over the party, broken only by the beat of footsteps. Cloud was used to silence, but this one made him feel oddly uneasy.

Everyone’s tempers were frayed from the loss and confusion of Cosmos’s fall, and then the aimless wandering after that. It was understandable. But they had a destination now, and a lead, however flimsy. Things were bound to smooth over and settle down. They all shared a common goal, after all.

He just wished he could shake the feeling that this was but the first fracture in their tiny little group of survivors. He only hoped they could last until they found a way home. 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

“Cloud! Hey, Cloud!” Onion Knight came running up behind him, pattering through the snow on light, quick steps.

Cloud stopped and waited for the short knight to catch up. It was only then he realised how far behind the others had fallen – Tidus and Terra in particular struggling in the cold. Even Cecil was lagging a good twenty steps back.

Once he was in easy speaking distance, the young knight dropped his voice. “Do you think we could stop and camp for a while? Terra’s getting tired.”

Judging by the slight tremble in his legs and the way he kept rubbing his hands, Terra wasn’t the only one in need of a break. “Sure,” Cloud said. “I can see a gateway just ahead. You tell the others, I’ll get a fire started.”

With visible relief, Onion Knight scampered back the way he came to pass the word on, earning a cheer from Tidus as he went.

Cloud eyed the sky with a sigh. It didn’t matter so much when he’d been travelling alone – he would just keep walking until exhaustion claimed him, which with mako enhancements, could take quite some time. He needed to remember to be more vigilant of his companions, who might be strong in their own rights, but were still human. There was no day and night cycle in this world to keep track of such basic needs for him.

By the time the rest of the group tromped into the gateway, covered in a fine dusting of snow, he had a small blaze going. They’d been lucky – the gateway led to a dusky sliver of forest, with a castle visible in the distance, and was thankfully free of manikins. They might have been in for a less comfortable layover if they’d wound up on top of an airship, or even worse, the crumbling centre of the Planet.

“All right!” Tidus cheered at the sight of the fire, rushing to warm his hands. Terra followed at a more sedate pace, but sank to her knees next to it just as gratefully.

Cloud moved back to give them room – he didn’t need it, and the gateway was warm enough, especially compared to the Elven Snowfields.

Onion Knight hovered near the fire, but not  _too_  close to it, lest anyone think him less tough for it. Cloud found himself surprised to be hiding a grin. He’d been like that once too, but back then he couldn’t fight like the kid did, either.

Cecil settled down next to Cloud – the cold had turned his milky white skin even paler, but it was hard to tell how he fared when his lips always held that faint blue tinge. He kept an eye on the subdued Paladin, though, and was relieved to see a faint flush rise on his cheeks after a while.

Tidus was chattering to Terra by the fire, so Onion Knight soon shifted closer to him and Cecil. “The cold doesn’t seem to bother you,” he commented, failing to hide the note of jealousy in his voice.

Cloud gave a half-shrug. “I was born in the mountains. Walking cross-country in the snow isn’t such a big deal after a while.”

“Me too! But I guess the Sasune region doesn’t get a lot of snow.” Onion Knight blinked at that.

“You remembered something new?” Cecil asked curiously.

“Yeah! I wish there was more, though.” He crossed his arms behind his head and leant back, looking up through the leafy canopy to the sky beyond. “They’re like all these separate puzzle pieces, and some of them make sense on their own, but I still can’t see where they fit into the whole picture.”

“It’ll be like that for a while,” Cloud murmured. “Once you recall enough, though, it starts getting about details, and it’s not so strange then.”  
  
"I've remembered more as well, but it seems so little," Cecil admitted. "How long did it take you? You said it would be years, just to recognise the cycle…"  
  
Cloud’s gaze turned dark, directed inward. "Something like that. And some of it, well... some of it no amount of time will get back."  
  
Alarm flashed across the Paladin's features. "You mean-?"  
  
"Sorry," Cloud interrupted. "Not what I meant. I lost them before, is all. Being summoned to this world... didn't make a difference, there."

They fell into an awkward silence. There had been an unspoken agreement between the survivors not to ask about their lives before. It would come up in conversation sometimes, and occasionally someone would volunteer a bit of history, especially if it were a new memory recently regained, but it ended there. It was out of respect, largely, for those who hadn’t gained as much back – Terra in particular, but before he left them Cloud had started to suspect that Squall had fewer memories to regain overall. Or maybe he just played them all much closer to his chest.

"Memories are precious, aren't they?" Cecil murmured. "But we don't realise how precious, until they're taken away." He dropped back into a moody silence.

The three of them sat quiet for several minutes, watching the crackling flames and listening to Tidus’s easy chatter and Terra’s shy interjections. Squall’s absence felt strangely stark, even if Cloud were rather sure he would have spent the whole time with his arms crossed in the corner, not talking to anybody.

“Why do you suppose no one has been revived this cycle?” Onion Knight suddenly wondered aloud.

That caught the group’s attention, everyone’s eyes shifting to him. “What do you mean?” Terra prompted curiously.

“Well, we saw ShinRyuu, right? If what Cloud said about the cycles is true, at least  _some_  of the warriors who fell should have been revived.” He’d obviously been chewing on this thought for a few days. “I’m not entirely sure how the rebirth process works, but it’s a little odd, isn’t it?”

Their gazes swivelled towards Cloud. For his part, he admitted, “There have been cycles where Cosmos or Chaos have waned, but this is the first time I can remember that either of them have fallen. I only have guesses. Hopefully the Mured Moogle will know more.”

An awkward silence began to descend once again, the inevitable curtain on the end of the conversation.

Then Tidus piped up, “Hey, you know, it’s a big place! Maybe some of them  _did_  revive, and we simply haven’t come across them yet?” He patted Onion Knight on the head, tousling his helmet feathers.

Onion Knight batted the hand away. “Stop that! I’m not a kid!”

Tidus held up his hands with a laugh and grin. “Sorry! You’re just such a  _squirt_.”

Onion Knight just huffed, evidently deciding his pride was better served by ignoring him. “I guess it’s possible, but wouldn’t we have seen someone by now? We’ve been wandering around the Southern Islands for weeks.”

“Maybe they’re on the Northern Islands?” Cecil offered.

The contribution was unexpected, and Cloud found himself studying the paladin closer. Lately he’d been mostly hiding in his dark armour, but now that he  _wasn’t_ , the naked hope in his eyes was obvious.

_Golbez_. It had to be for Golbez.

“I doubt it,” Cloud murmured. “Most of those affiliated with Cosmos who lost were reborn last cycle. Those of Chaos weren’t as lucky.”

“What about my old man?” Tidus challenged.

Cloud shrugged. “He used to be on Harmony’s side. Maybe that was enough. But Kuja wasn’t revived, and there was no reason for him not to be. He wasn’t that spent.” The growing desolation on Cecil’s face was obvious, and he hastily amended, “…But like I said, I only have guesses. Anything is possible at this point.”

Shiva, he was bad at this. He’d been alone for so long he’d forgotten how to deal with people.

For his part, Cecil just nodded quietly. It had ignited a strange light in his eyes though – one Cloud didn’t know what to make of. So he simply busied himself feeding kindling into the flagging fire.

They sat that way for several minutes, until Onion Knight once more broke the silence with, “Hey Cloud… I just wanted to say, you know, about before… Don’t take what Squall said personally.”

“Huh?”

“You know. About not trusting you. I know you’re on our side and wouldn’t hurt us. I mean, you’re a  _little_  scary," he admitted. "You killed both Chaos and Cosmos after all."  
  
Cloud hunched his shoulders. "Anyone here could have done it. I was just the first one who tried."  
  
"That you tried at all says a lot," Terra remarked quietly. "It wasn't anything any of us even thought about. We were so focused on defeating the enemies in front of us, we lost sight of our goals."  
  
"It wasn't our fault," Onion Knight retorted fervently. "We couldn't remember. How could we have known how pointless it was if it was always the first time?"

Still, it was nice to think they cared enough to reassure him. “Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter if you trust me or not at this point.”

Onion Knight crossed his arms. “But we’re comrades now, right? And comrades have to trust each other. That’s how we won so many battles back on my home world.” He blinked again, looking faintly distraught at the recollection. Homesickness, maybe. Another memory, Cloud guessed.

“Yeah,” was his only reply.

Comrades. Huh. After so many cycles, that was going to take some getting used to.

 

……………

 

Onion Knight blinked awake to the gentle rustling of tree leaves in the breeze. It was still dusk, and for one strange moment he panicked, certain he’d slept the day away.

As he came back to his senses, the moment passed, as always. Even in the gateways time didn’t flow normally.

The forest was as eerily silent as the snowfields had been, and a glance around showed the fire had died at some point, leaving only coal and ashes. Had he woken early?

Something was missing.

The sensation of wrongness had him sitting up, reaching for his short sword, eyes scanning the clearing more carefully.

No, not something,

_Someone_.

“Cecil?” Onion Knight ventured. Cloud stirred, sitting up at the sound of his voice.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, brushing the grass from his clothes.

“Isn’t Cecil supposed to be on watch?” he asked, standing now. There was no sign of the paladin. He scooted to the edge of the clearing, peering into trees beyond. Had he gone to investigate something? Toilet break?

The sense of foreboding settling upon his shoulders suggested otherwise.

Cloud joined him. “I’ll go investigate. You wake the others, just in case.” He ventured into the dark forest.

It was a small matter to rouse Terra and Tidus – it was near the time they would have awoken anyhow. Tidus was stretching and yawning when Cloud made his way back to the clearing.

“See anything?” Onion Knight asked.

“No sign,” Cloud said. “Except for what might be some tracks, leading out the way we came in.”

Onion Knight whirled on the rest of their party, that sickening feeling solidifying in his gut. “Did anyone see or hear anything?”

They all shook their heads. “I was second last watch,” Tidus volunteered. “But nothing seemed strange when I woke him for it.”

“…He was insistent he take the last watch,” Cloud murmured.

That  _had_  been odd, now that Onion Knight thought on it. The others usually insisted he or Terra take last watch, to afford them an uninterrupted night’s sleep. He sometimes chafed under the implications – though he might be youngest, he was  _not_  a child – and had been all too eager to offer Cecil that watch instead. Hadn’t thought to wonder at the change until now.

“Um,” Terra murmured. “Is that…” She pointed towards the remains of the fire.

In the grass rested a string of familiar blue, white and gold beads.

The way it had been laid out was no accident.

Onion Knight knelt down, picking up the string of the beads. They were cool as glass in his hands. The fire had been dead for some time.

“Yesterday, when we were talking,” Terra murmured, clasping her hands to her chest. “About the Northern Islands…”

“…Golbez,” Cloud muttered.

Cecil had left them. Without even a word.

“First Squall and now…” Onion Knight choked. This world was so empty already, why had they-

“Hey,” Tidus interrupted. “We still have a mission. They just… had a different mission, you know?”

“But to leave, without even saying anything?” Onion Knight wasn’t sure if he were distraught or just angry.

Terra laid a hand on his shoulder. “We can find the Mured Moogle, and a way home, and meet up with them then, can’t we?”

That was true. Going home was their top priority. Squall’s too, he guessed, even though the gunblader was going about it like an idiot. “They’re stupid,” he muttered. But they were all he knew. They’d lost so many already, could anyone blame him for being scared about losing more?

Terra was still there with him, though. He focused on that. Terra shouldn’t have to stay in this awful place. He needed to help her get home.

He didn’t want to think about what might come after. They’d said so many goodbyes already.

 

…………………

 

Squall tugged irritably at the collar of his coat. The Onrac region was unbearably warm, the air heavy with sulphurous gases and his path broken by constant eruptions and lava streams. Not ideal for a full leather getup.

He’d been lucky to find a still-functioning teleport crystal, and had taken it without question of where it would lead – just interested in getting  _away_. That it had led to the Northern Islands was lucky. Given that this had been Chaos’s stronghold, he thought it far more likely that he would find something relevant to returning home here. Something better than a wild moogle chase.

Cosmos hadn’t known how to return them home. Chaos might have.

The lava hissed and sputtered, the only sound to accompany the thud of his boots on the dark volcanic rock. There was no life in this world – just them. And manikins, if manikins could even be called a lifeform.

There were more manikins here in the Northern Islands – still few and far between, but the ones he did stumble across were a more satisfying challenge than those strays of Crescent Lake and the Elven Snowfields.

More unsettling were the visages. Faces he didn’t recognise, agents of Chaos, even one mirror of himself – they were no problem. Manikins of Bartz, Firion, Zidane, and Warrior of Light however… those made him uncomfortable.

In this world, the dead never had the grace to stay dead, even when they weren’t reborn.

Crystal shattered under his gunblade, crumbling to the ground in a shower of sparkling dust. Squall brushed it from his coat, sweeping his gaze across the landscape to reorient himself from the battle.

Silence. Absolute, total silence.

_Loneliness_.

Squall hadn’t thought it could get to him. He was fine with being alone. That was  _who he was_. Worrying about other people all the time… that wasn’t his thing. Better to not get attached.

Besides, he was sure they were fine without him.

In the distance, a glow of red, a different shade to the flowing magma, caught his eye. He changed course, heading towards it, until it resolved into a gateway.

He could tell at only a glance that it was deep.

He hesitated then, for just one moment. Some primal instinct warned him that there would be no Mured Moogle in this one. And he didn’t have any backup.

The moment passed. Squall scoffed. He didn’t  _need_  backup.

He stepped inside.

 

…………………

 

Tidus was being moody again.

Cloud didn’t know what to do about it. If he tried to talk to him, the bleach-blond blitzballer would be all smiles again in an instant, insisting everything was fine. But ignoring it didn’t accomplish anything either.

He didn’t know what to do anymore. Somehow, he was expected to keep their ragtag little band of survivors together and focused on the goal of finding a way home. And he was already failing so spectacularly – Squall had struck out on his own at the first hint of disagreement, and Cecil had disappeared without a word to presumably search for Golbez. He’d noticed Squall’s discontent, and Cecil’s grief, and had done nothing.

He wouldn’t make that mistake with Tidus.

As much as Cloud felt uncomfortable with it, he’d noticed that he’d somehow been unofficially elected as leader of their excursion, and the painfully distant memory of his AVALANCHE days infused him with an odd sense of responsibility for the welfare of their diminished little band.

It was a big adjustment. It had been a long time since he’d had comrades. Longer than he could count.

Which made him the worst possible candidate for this, but no one else was going to do it.

He approached Tidus on the bluff. The Elven Snowfields were just visible in the distance from the rocky overhang, the distant snow-peaked tips of the Frozen Continent’s mountain range stark against the endlessly roiling grey clouds. The icy bite to the breeze was almost refreshing after their many days of trekking through the snow. “Hey.”

The blitzballer glanced at him, and a few seconds too late a bright grin stretched across his face. “Hey, Cloud. What’s up?”

No point dancing around the topic. “You don’t have to pretend, you know.”

“Huh?”

Cloud gave him a flat stare. “Don’t play the happy-go-lucky dumb jock card. What’s been bothering you?”

Tidus rubbed the back of his neck, his grin turning into a grimace. “You really don’t waste any time getting straight to the punch, do you?”

The Buster sword was digging into his shoulder. Cloud spent a moment shifting it into a more comfortable position. “It’s been long enough that you’re obviously not going to deal with it on your own.” He paused, thinking through his next words carefully. “You might not want to talk to me about it. That’s fine. But if you need help… that’s what comrades are for.”

Pep talks felt alien on his tongue after so long. Like lying.

Tidus shook his head at that. “Nah, it’s nothing personal. It’s just… I don’t even know where to start, you know? And I don’t want to drag you guys down.”

“We’re not exactly the cheeriest bunch in the first place,” Cloud stated bluntly. “…Is it about Jecht?” Because he’d expected problems from that. Having someone jump in front of a sword for you, sacrificing themselves right before your eyes – that did things to people. He knew better than most.

Predictably, the name brought a scowl to Tidus’s lips. “That guy? No way.” He started to pace along the edge of the bluff, kicking a stone off the side, where it tumbled and skittered for what seemed like forever. “If anything, I hate him  _more_  for doing that. Just going off and dying, protecting me like I’m still some little  _kid_.”

The anger wasn’t entirely false, but it seemed to Cloud like it was directed more at himself than his father. “You’d rather have died in his place?” That could be a problem. It wasn’t an issue Cloud really felt comfortable counselling  _anybody_  on. Maybe he should have left this to Onion Knight or Terra after all.

“Of course not!” Tidus burst out. “I  _like_  existing, you know? My stupid old man doesn’t change any of that!”

It was an odd choice of words.

Cloud stayed quiet and didn’t ask, though. Sometimes, when confronted with enough silence, other people would fill it for him.

Luckily, Tidus was no different. His mouth twisted in a forced smile. "It’s just… I'm not even sure this is all real sometimes, you know? It could all just be... a dream."  
  
Cloud chewed on that for a moment, then commented. "Pretty messed up dream."  
  
That startled a laugh out of the blitzballer. "Sure is!" He threaded his fingers behind his head, staring out at the view. “…But I guess I can’t help but wondering, what happens when the dream ends?”

Cloud followed his gaze. Somewhere out there, among the crags and canyons of Melmond Fens, was a moogle who might help them. It had been a long journey so far, and they didn’t even know if it would end when they found him. “I suppose... we go home.”

“Yeah.” Tidus’s voice was soft, nearly a whisper. “But what if, back home, you’re already…”

His words were whisked away by the cold breeze. “Sorry?” Cloud asked.

Tidus slanted him a grin. “Ah, don’t worry about it. I mean, you’ve been stuck in this crazy dream for too long already, right? You don’t exactly want to stick around.” He nodded to himself, though the gesture looked oddly wistful. “Stories are supposed to have endings.”

Cloud remained silent, perplexed and more than a little unnerved. Tidus just slapped him on the back and started heading back towards the campsite. “Thanks for asking, though. It’s okay, really. Come on, it looks like Terra’s got a fire going.”

Something about the words niggled at the back of his brain though. It felt unfinished. Which was why Cloud found himself saying, “Hey. Tidus.”

The blitzballer paused. “Yeah?”

“Your story. How does it end?”

Tidus stilled at that, and for one brief moment, looked oddly insubstantial.

Then he smiled – a strange, brilliantly sad smile, that shone like the sun and reminded Cloud painfully of a flower girl he once knew, long ago.

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

The Mirage Desert stretched out far before him, an endless expanse of white sand, ringed by distant looming black mountains.

Had there been any sunlight, it might have sparkled. In the endless dusk of this world, it was cold, and dead, and even more starkly lifeless than the snowfields.

Cecil trailed the tip of his scabbard through the fine sand. Something about it bothered him. The desert felt unnatural, nearly ethereal.

It might have just been a side effect of the Northern Islands. It had been Chaos’s stronghold, and even now, with both Gods dead, he felt unwelcome. In his memories – those he possessed, at any rate – he had only been here once before, when they had sought out agents of Chaos to end the war once and for all.

When they had sought out and killed Golbez.

_‘Is peace what you desire most_?’

He rehung his blade and walked deeper into the desert, white cape billowing behind him. He felt unworthy of the Paladin armour, now. Yet the Dark Knight helm constricted his view, and even in the cool desert breeze felt hot and stifling. He pushed his white hair from his eyes as a sudden gust of wind sent sand swirling in his wake.

The world certainly was peaceful now.

He could no longer tell what colour of guilt dogged his steps in the seemingly endless desert. When he sat to rest atop a dune for a few hours, and fell into a light, troubled doze, whose voices taunted him; Golbez, or the comrades he had abandoned without a word?

They wouldn’t have understood. Or perhaps worse, they might have, and might have delayed their own mission to help Cecil with his.

He could not bear the further shame of others sacrificing for his benefit. This search he needed to perform alone.

After a restless few hours of shallow napping, he rose and set forth again into the emptiness.

_‘I fear there can be no place for me in the light_.’

On the glare of the horizon, a form began to take shape. Cecil’s breath quickened as it grew closer, and the silhouette took on a familiar form.

A mirage?

The form was solid, however, and only gained definition as he moved closer. Cecil found his feet moving faster, until he was almost running. Could it be true?  Had he revived after all…?

“Golbez?” His voice cracked on the word.

The form turned around, and his hopes were dashed. What he’d thought was the glint of armour merely dark crystal.

_Manikin_.

No rumbling words greeted him – only eerie silence and the faint glassy chink and grind of the manikin’s movements. Cecil stared, dumbfounded, as it moved towards him suddenly, murderous intent clear.

Why had he been granted  _those_  memories, of all of the ones he was missing? It would have been so much easier if he were  _ignorant_ …

The manikin let loose a barrage of dark magic – weak, nothing like the salvos of malicious energy Golbez had hurtled at him, but it finally shocked the paladin from his stupor. He dropped to the ground, rolling away, pulling his sword free as he went.

It was a shade. A copy.  _This wasn’t his brother_.

Yet he could not quite bring his sword to bear – merely retreating in the face of each new attack, blocking and parrying, then hesitating a second too long on every opening.

The manikin remained bold – a fireball at his feet blasting Cecil into the air. It rose beneath him, an ominous shadow, razor sharp crystalline staff bared.

_‘Then show me the strength of your conviction_!’

With a gasp, Cecil twisted midair and slashed. His blade struck true.

The manikin shattered.

He crashed back to the desert, dropping to his knees, breath coming in shallow pants.  _Weak_. It should not have taken him that long.

Yet Cecil could only stare in dull horror as the remains of the manikin crumbled to dust before him, scattering across the ground. 

Blending seamlessly with the sand beneath his feet. An entire desert of crystal dust.

  
……………………

 

It had taken weeks, in the end, but they had finally made it to Melmond Fens. It had been days of searching after that until they finally stumbled across a gateway not quite like the others – where most would be but a glimpse into another world, this one seemed to stack them together in a never-ending patchwork that spiralled into what felt like infinity.

Terra didn’t like it, not at all.  Unlike many of the other gateways they’d searched, this one was still full of manikins.

And even worse, manikins of  _him_.

She felt a bit sorry for him in the end, though she couldn’t remember why. 

His taunts she  _could_  remember, however, still stung, and they rung in her ears in place of the warbled, synthetic growls of the manikins.  And while a great many of the dimensional patches were foreign to her, there was one in particular, dank, brown, and filled with pipes and tubes, which sent unpleasant shivers down her spine.  It took all of her self-control to hide her distress and not to hurry recklessly through it in her rush to transition to a friendlier space.

“You okay?” Onion Knight asked, face upturned and filled with concern instead of the usual shining eagerness.

Terra took a deep breath, and managed to twitch her lips into a weak smile.  “I’m alright.  We should keep going.”

It was so silly, that he was so young and so small, and sought to protect  _her_.  Shame clouded her face once his bright eyes had turned away.  It  _should_  have been the other way around.  He was wonderfully strong, she knew, even if his arms were not long enough to wield a broadsword, or his body quite large enough to carry the heavier armour Cecil favoured.  But Terra  _wanted_  to.  He’d become important, someone she could rely on, and who she wanted to one day rely on her in turn.

Except… could she really?  Was she even capable of being anything more than timid and weak, or worse, a monster?  Was there no middle ground she could hope to occupy?

Since Squall left… well, something so small shouldn’t have set her off.  And Squall hadn’t even been talking about her.  But the seed of doubt had crept under her skin like a splinter.

_“There’s nothing dangerous left, aside from_ us _.”_

She  _was_  dangerous.  Her control of her magic felt so tenuous.  It didn’t seem to matter so much when they’d been travelling the countryside, and the moogles had distracted her - she’d always liked moogles, they were so cute and just one hug could calm her, there was no  _stress_  with moogles… 

And then to learn that once upon a time she’d fought for  _Chaos_ …

_Freedom_ , she reminded herself.  She’d been on Chaos’s side because she liked  _freedom,_  not destruction.  She couldn’t remember how – or why – she’d come to Cosmos’s side, but did it matter?  Tidus had been there too.  And Cloud – he could be a little scary sometimes, but he wasn’t a bad person.

“I just… want…” Her whispers trailed off.  She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. 

It didn’t help.  The dank, metallic air only reminded her of shadowed despair. Glimpses of terrifying memories that made no sense.

“There’s a lot of manikins here,” Tidus mused.  “How did this many get missed?” He peered through the tubes, searching for an ambush. They’d been set upon nearly immediately after stepping into the Gateway and had been subjected to frequent assaults since. It was the most fighting they’d needed to do in weeks.

“Manikins inside gateways would have been easy to overlook when they were gathering the army for the assault on Cosmos,” Cloud said. “…But you’re right that this many is an anomaly.”

"Maybe it means we’re on to something!” Onion Knight enthused, then glanced to Terra to see if that had cheered her up. She summoned a small smile, and hoped it didn’t look as forced as it felt.

It dropped from her face as an eerie warbling impression of a laugh echoed off the walls. Through the tubes, she glimpsed only a flash of cartwheeling crystal before suddenly  _he_ was there, complete in crystalline approximation of clown outfit.

“There’s more!” Tidus called out in warning, even as he drew his sword and rushed to fight a translucent, glittering version of Ultimecia. Onion Knight and Cloud turned to engage others, leaving Terra backing away from the nightmarish facsimile in front of her.

“Don’t-” The words had barely left her lips before she instinctively threw out a barrage of fireballs.  The manikin skittered among them, dodging and weaving, slashing angrily at her. She brought up her short sword barely in time, and the block shuddered along her arm with a glassy ring.  Frantic, she summoned a flurry of ice, frost drifting around her hands as she formed barrier after barrier. The manikin crashed through them recklessly, until she couldn’t tell whether it was shattered ice or shattered crystal falling to the floor.

She whirled away, wind spinning around her with enough sharpness and force to slice shivers of glass from a nearby tube. She flinched away from it, and then the manikin was coming again, and ‘ _Destroy them!’_  whispered in her ears.

Magic crackled like static across her skin; her fingertips burned with it. Her breath came in short gasps, she couldn’t get enough oxygen, her power, she couldn’t…

One last well-placed Blizzara, and the manikin finally shattered.

Terra still stood there, trembling from exertion, frozen in place. A slither of a memory snaked through the back of her mind, poisonous words. A clown in terrifying colour instead of refracted light and minerals.

_“There’s nothing dangerous left, aside from_ us _.”_

“Terra?” Onion Knight ventured behind her.

“Stay away!” she yelped, magic lashing out instinctively in her fright.

Except instead of a small thunderspark, a blinding burst of pure energy exploded, knocking Onion Knight clear across the room.  He slammed into the wall and fell to the ground, unconscious.

“Squirt!” Tidus yelled in alarm, rushing to his aid.

Terra could only stare in horror, fear mounting as her magic only  _increased_  again, writhing and wild, thrumming madly beneath her skin.

“Terra, you-” Cloud started to say.

Terra just shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. She spun on her heel and ran back the way they came, magic whirling and sparking around her.

She was too dangerous, too out of control.

“Terra!”

 

………………

 

Cloud watched the half-esper flee with concern, forced to give up the chase – SOLDIER gave him many abilities, but flight wasn’t among them.

He doubted Terra even realised she had shifted to her esper form to escape. Considering the past cycle, it might have been the first time she’d ever done so.

He ran a hand through his spikes, sighing. Another thing he’d overlooked. Given what he’d known of Terra on Chaos’s side, he should have seen this coming. Especially once they started encountering manikins of Kefka.

Nothing he could do for now. He turned back towards Tidus and Onion Knight.

“How is he?” Cloud asked once he was close.

Tidus glanced up at him, eyebrows knit with concern. “Unconscious.”

“Do we have any elixirs?”

Tidus grimaced. “Cecil was carrying them. It’s not that bad though – his armour’s not just for show.” He tapped the bright red helmet with a bit of fondness. “He’ll have some bruises and some light burns, but nothing that a bit of rest won’t heal up.”

Cloud glanced around the gateway. They were near the border of another space, one hopefully more hospitable than this one. It was too easy to be ambushed in this place. “Can he be moved?”

“I think we can risk it. If we make anything worse… well, I guess then we’ll have to go track down a moogle to get new elixirs ourselves.”  With more gentleness than one normally attributed the brash blitzballer, he scooped up the small knight, adjusting him carefully so that his head was pillowed against his shoulder.  He huffed. “You’re heavier than you look, squirt.”

“I’ll take care of any manikins we come across,” Cloud said. “We’ll find somewhere to make camp. Let me know if you want to swap.”

Tidus grinned at him. He seemed to have an unending capacity to bounce back from any disaster with a smile that Cloud was reluctantly beginning to admire. “Carry that sword  _and_  the squirt? I doubt even you’re that strong.”

Cloud’s lips twitched upwards in response, but he was already focused on leading the way to the next area, keeping an eye out for any more manikins. Luckily he only needed to dispatch two before they transitioned to a new part of the gateway – this seemed to be some grand wooden open air stage, set high above a sprawling city. The wide open space made it easy see any approaching manikins, and the weather was pleasant enough that the lack of shelter hardly mattered.

Tidus appeared to agree, as he lowered Onion Knight carefully to the ground.

“Still unconscious?” Cloud asked. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Yeah.” Tidus worked his helmet free, checking his head for damage. “Nothing obvious. We might have to go find a moogle anyway-” He cut himself off as Onion Knight’s face scrunched with pain – clearly in reaction to Tidus’s prodding. “Squirt!”

“Don’ call me tha,” Onion Knight slurred, eyelids dragging open.  Cloud knelt down next to him, hand over his eyes, checking the irises.  “What are you-”

“Doesn’t seem too bad.” Cloud remarked. Generally people summoned to this world were made of sterner stuff than most even if they weren’t of the science experiment variety. “We can wait it out, at least until he’s well enough to cast some cures on himself.”

Tidus made an exaggerated sigh. “The one person here with any healing magic  _would_  be the one injured.”

“…What happened? Where’s Terra?” Onion Knight asked weakly.

“Gone,” Cloud said. Onion Knight’s eyes widened at that, and he moved to sit up, but Cloud pushed him back down. “She’s powerful, she’ll be fine. I think she just needed to… let off some steam.”

“No,” Onion Knight mumbled.  “She has to know… wasn’t her fault. I need to-”

“The only thing  _you_  need to do right now is rest up,” Tidus interrupted.

“This is a good a place as any to make camp. There don’t seem to be any manikins near,” Cloud observed. They hadn’t rested since before entering the gateway. He couldn’t help wonder if the weariness has frayed Terra’s emotions and control, especially after having both Cecil and Squall strike out on their own. Better not to make that mistake again. “Terra will be alright on her own for a while. I doubt she’ll stay gone long.”

“You don’t  _know_  her,” Onion Knight argued.

Cloud probably knew her better than the young knight did, and that she  _definitely_  wouldn’t want to see the person she accidentally injured with bruises and burns still fresh, but figured that wouldn’t be welcome commentary when the knight could barely keep his head up, eyelids fluttering. He stayed silent.

“We can’t catch up anyway, squirt. She transformed and took off faster than a cactuar. And  _you_  have at least a mild concussion so don’t go aggravating it, alright? If you make yourself sick catching up to her she’s just going to feel  _worse_. Heal up first. Use that big brain you’re so proud of.” Tidus seemed to know the magic words to make Onion Knight settle down, however mutinously. “Two watches, then, I’ll take second watch if that’s cool with you Cloud.” Cloud nodded in assent. He was good for a few more hours yet.

“Make it three. I’ll take last watch,” Onion Knight said sullenly.

“You’re injured-” Tidus tried to interject.

“I’ll be recovered enough by then,” he replied stubbornly. “You guys need to rest too. At least let me do this much.”

Over his head, Cloud and Tidus exchanged a glance. Tidus shrugged.

 

………………

 

Cloud wasn’t terribly surprised when Tidus shook him awake some hours later and said, “The squirt’s gone.”

He rolled to his feet, scanning the area out of habit. “When did he go?”

“No idea. I was going to let him sleep through his watch but he woke up. Then I figured I’d just sit up with him to keep an eye on him in case he drifted off but I’m think he cast a sleep spell on me, wouldn’t surprise me if that’s in his giant bag of tricks. When I woke up he was gone. No guesses what he’s gone to do.”

Chasing Terra, then. Even if he wasn’t surprised by this turn of events, Cloud  _had_  hoped that Onion Knight, being the most logical of the lot of them, wouldn’t be that hasty to take off with a  _concussion_. And that with their diminished numbers he wouldn’t leave them sleeping and a prime ambush target.

“We would have gone with him, once he recovered,” Cloud said. “The Mured Moogle can wait.”

Tidus sighed. “I know. But knowing the squirt, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly  _why_  he waited to sneak off. Didn’t want to compromise the mission or something.” He scratched the back of his neck, holding back a yawn.  “Should have seen it coming. He’s got a cool head except when it comes to Terra.”

Cloud stared into the distance, where the wooden stage merged nonsensically into the dank laboratories they’d left behind. “Should we go after them?” Chasing down Terra hadn’t been practical with an unconscious Onion Knight, but this was a different matter. Even with a head start, they might be able to catch up to him.

Tidus shrugged. “Is there any point? Even if he’s not thinking with his head, he was evidently recovered enough to cast spells. And if he  _does_ catch up with Terra, they’ll be fine. We’re this far in, right? Might as well see if there’s anything to this Mured Moogle first, and go meet up with them after.”

“…Sure,” Cloud agreed. But he couldn’t quite chase away the hollow feeling, that six had become five had become four had become two.

Whether he’d had the same thought, or Tidus was better at reading people than he’d given him credit for, the cheerful blitzballer slapped him on the back. “Don’t worry about it. Same as with Chaos’s lot, right? They summoned a bunch of leaders from a heap of different worlds, of course they all want to do their own thing. Probably the only reason they ever managed to get that many lone wolves and egomaniacs and princes or whatever united to a cause was, well, y’know…”

Chaos and Cosmos’s influence. Without a common enemy, they splintered.

It didn’t make Cloud feel any better about it.

“Does that include you?” Cloud asked.

Tidus laughed. “I was never a leader, more of a tagalong. As far as I can remember, anyway.” He fidgeted, staring at his hands as though checking for something. “It might be a bit more risky for me to strike out on my own, anyway, so uh, hope you’re okay with me sticking around!”

It was an odd sentiment – Tidus back in Chaos’s camp had been perfectly comfortable wandering around on his own, and for all that the self-proclaimed blitzballer didn’t have the same fighting background as the rest of them, he was still a formidable opponent, perhaps especially because of his unconventional style. “It’s fine,” Cloud assured him belatedly, when the silence had become awkward. “Just… different. Before, you…”

Had been focused on fighting Jecht. Cloud left the thought unfinished. He sighed, and stared to the edge of the wooden stage, to the dimensional fragment beyond. 

Something about it all still didn’t sit quite right.

This world had taught him to trust his instincts, above all else.

“Let’s hurry then,” he said. “Better not to keep them waiting.”

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

 

Carefully, Onion Knight scanned the beach, searching for the next minuscule clue that might point him to Terra.

Guilt lurked in the back of his thoughts – he’d left Tidus and Cloud sleeping, without a watch, but there hadn’t been any manikins near and they were both tough, he was sure they would be fine. He just hoped they didn’t take it personally, or abandon their mission. They just – they wouldn’t understand. He had a  _responsibility_  to Terra, and she was  _so_ gentle-hearted, he  _needed_  to show her that he was fine, and that he didn’t blame her, that he wasn’t  _scared_. Not of her. Not ever.

A dull headache still lurked in the back of his skull, which he resolutely ignored – it was more exhaustion than any lingering damage from his injuries. His cure magic tended to trade hurts for fatigue, but he couldn’t risk resting long, in case Terra widened the gap between them while he dallied.

A slight disturbance in the sand to the east. He turned that way, purposefully striding forward.

It had been… well, he had no sure way to tell time in this world, but it had been close to two days, at a guess. But this world was so empty of life, so unchanging in its patterns, that it made tracking easy. Even if the person you were tracking could fly. So long as Terra had touched down anywhere, or even skimmed above the ground for a period, it was enough to get a heading. The odd half-formed footprint, or wash of disturbed sand.

There were other clues, too. Scorch marks on boulders. Slowly melting frost on the edges of a pond. The aftermath of a violent tornado in a world where the weather was mostly static. They were getting fresher, too. He picked up his pace. She couldn’t be far away.

There ahead, on the beach, stood a dazzling blue gateway. Most of the gateways were blue now, of course, but he felt especially drawn to this one. The sigils were more complex, perhaps? The colour looked deeper, somehow, or maybe it was just the reflection of the sea playing tricks on his eyes.

He looked to the sand before it. Unmistakable footsteps.   _Terra_.

With scarcely a thought for the exhaustion dragging at his limbs, he followed them inside.

 

…………

 

The gateway was silent but for the dull distant rumble of lava flows and the tread of Squall’s boots on earth.

To begin with the fractured fragments of worlds had been passingly familiar – ones he’d seen in other gateways, or from his own world, or maybe even forgotten memories of past cycles. This area, though, this fragment – this was new. A landscape dotted with volcanoes, with swords the size of buildings buried like the gravestones of titans.

The manikins were thin on this ground in this gateway – thin on the ground everywhere, but gateways usually had  _more_ , not less. Unless something had cleared them out beforehand.

He didn’t relish meeting who – or what – might be responsible. But the emptiness, the oppressive  _silence_  – it had started to get to him, calling in flashbacks of a cracked, endless desert, of a floating island in a void, of  _nothingness_. Memories that made no sense without context, but chilled him to the bone anyway.

He drew his gunblade, and felt silly for it, but kept it out regardless.  _Battle readiness_ , he told himself, and tried to shake the sensation that he was a child creeping about in fear of ghosts.

Then he saw the throne.

It was enormous, regal and ancient, seeming to come from the ground itself. Aside from the shallow dais it rested upon, there was nothing else, no reason for it to exist in the landscape. No structure, no path beyond the faint wear in the dirt leading up to it.

It was a throne that presided over nothing.

The hair prickled along the back of his neck. A guttural growl. The hiss of a lava flow.

Squall spun, and barely raised his gunblade in time to stop the claws slashing at his throat.

It was gone again, impossibly fast for its size, his eyes barely able to catch the black and red demon, its body shining like it was made of magma. He leapt back, twisting midair, gasping for breath as razor sharp claws ripped across his leg.

It was all teeth and claws and wings and magic, hot breath and glowing eyes and power and speed that felt tangible in the air, a wild electric current of rage and hunger and  _defiance._

_“Chaos,”_  Squall cursed.

 

…………

 

“Terra?  Terra!” Onion Knight called. His voice fell strangely flat in the gateway. Even though they were in the Melmond region, the fragments of this gateway reminded him of the Sanctuary. White sand and still waters and enormous sweeping remains of marble architecture.

There had been no manikins to speak of – it made his progress quick, but it was more than a little eerie. Gateways were about the only place manikins were  _left._

Finally, up ahead he caught a flash of red. “Terra!” he called, running towards her, giddy with relief.

Terra whirled, and it seemed like the feeling wasn’t mutual. “Don’t!” she yelped, wringing her hands and backing away. “Stay away! It’s not-  _I’m_ not safe!”

“Terra, I’m fine! See?” Onion Knight crept closer, like he was approaching a skittish hound. He spread his hands. “You just… you needed to let off some steam, right? Like a pot boiling over. But look at yourself, you’re back to normal now. Nothing to worry about, right?” Based on what Cloud had mentioned of her esper form, this was… a little concerning, actually. Was it really as simple as just letting off some spells?

She stared at her hands, clenching them into fists. “I am now, but if I were to lose control again… I’m a monster. Destruction incarnate…”

“I can take it,” he promised, then amended. “ _We_ can take it. You don’t have to deal with it alone.” He crossed his arms. “I mean, look at us. You think you’re the only monster? Cloud took on Chaos single-handedly – do you think  _he’s_  a monster?”

“No!” she protested, then shrank back. “Aren’t you mad? I- I  _hurt_  you-”

“I was  _fine_ ,” he lied. His head still felt clouded and buzzed, but he was putting that more down to exhaustion than anything else at this point. “Which you would have known if you didn’t take off straight away.” But that sounded like blame, so he backtracked. “I came after you as fast as I could, to show you. I didn’t want you to worry.” He’d been right to come. Sure, Terra would have been fine for a few more days, but she would have spent that time suffering. “Come on, Terra. We have to stick together, right? We can’t all just keep running off on our own, or nothing will get done!”  _Hypocrite_ , a vaguely familiar voice taunted him in the back of his head.  _I’m fixing that_ , he shot right back.

“Do you think they’ll even want me back?” Terra wondered, sinking to her knees in the soft white sand.

“Of course! Think about it, we all have the same goal right? To go home, back to our own worlds? This is just a bit of a detour.”

“I’ve never really given much thought to what the future holds,” she confessed. “It’s… I don’t understand myself. I want to go home but, without my memories – home is a bit scary right now. I guess I’m worried… since I was originally summoned by Chaos – what if I’m a monster there? Destruction incarnate, just like he said?”

It was a heavy thought. He couldn’t say he hadn’t worried about similar things himself. He caught glimpses of places and people, but were they friends or enemies? Were they even still alive? He didn’t know, he knew  _nothing_  for certain. All he had were gut feelings.

“Then you’ll just have to change it, and make a better world,” he said. “Or come to one of our worlds! I haven’t remembered much, but I bet you’d like Sasune. And it sounds like Tidus’s world has some great beaches. I bet out of all six of them, you’d find one you like!”

She smiled at that, finally – a small, tentative little quirk to her lips, but the sight of it was such a  _relief_. “You’re right. And… even if I’m uncertain about what the future holds, or my own powers, I want to help everyone else reach their dreams too.” She nodded, that quiet determination he’d come to admire in her blossoming as though it had never left.

The buzzing his head only seemed to grow stronger though. Onion Knight shook his head a little, trying to clear it. The symptoms reminded him of something, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. He tried to focus on the horizon, maybe it was like motion sickness, the distance would-

He caught just a glimpse. Of golden hair, impossibly long, wild ethereal vines that drifted and pooled in snarls mid-air. Of white satin, billowing, edges torn and fluttering like dying butterflies. Eyes glowing golden with power, porcelain white skin littered with hairline cracks, that same golden light peeking through the fractures.

He knew this feeling. He  _recognised_  it.

“Terra!” He snatched her wrist and dragged her away, too rough but too frantic to apologise as she stumbled after him. “We have to get out of here!”

It made sense now, how Terra had been reborn in Cosmos’s side. Why her esper form had fled, however unconsciously, to  _this_  radiant blue gateway. How she’d gone from bursting with power back to normal so quickly and easily, how  _easy_ it had been to talk her down from her previous panic.

He didn’t stop running, not until they were spilling out of the gateway, gasping for breath, and somehow the air suddenly felt so much  _clearer_.

“That was…” Terra panted, voice thin and thready with shock. “That was Cosmos, wasn’t it? But she looked-”

Onion Knight staggered back to his feet. Now was not the time for rest. “We need to find the others.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

Squal dragged himself from the gateway, and fell to his knees with a gasp. The red sigil pulsed ominously behind him, but nothing emerged.  
  
His fingers scraped for purchase on the ground, but his strength had left him, the last of it used to fuel his desperate escape from the gateway. The air stifling hot against already burned skin.   
  
Then suddenly he was blinking his eyes, to the sound of a familiar voice repeating his name with increasing urgency.  “Squall? Squall!”  
  
He’d passed out, but he had no idea for how long. “Cecil?” he croaked, wincing at how his voice cracked on the word.  
  
“Thank the eidolons, I thought you were dead. What did this to you?” The paladin gently raised him into a sitting position.   
  
“I think it was Chaos,” he gasped out, even as Cecil hurriedly uncorked an elixir, shoving the vial in his face, tipping it down his throat. A rivulet of sparkling blue liquid slipped from the edge of his lips, running a thin line down his throat before soaking into his skin, disappearing with a faint glow. The vicious slashes on his back and legs, the burns that seemed to pepper every bit of exposed skin – slowly, they all began to cool and fade as the powerful curative worked its magic.  
  
“Chaos?” Cecil gaped. “But isn’t he-”  
  
“Reborn, maybe,” Squall cleared his throat, relieved that his voice came out smooth and painless. Tentatively, he pushed himself free from the paladin, and while exhaustion still dragged on his limbs, the only thing left of his wounds were bloodstains and torn clothing.  “It was like he’d gone feral. There was no intelligence there, no reasoning.”  
  
Cecil frowned at the gateway with a new wariness. “And you went in there  _alone_?”   
  
He hadn’t known, but truthfully, that wouldn’t have stopped him. He’d gone searching for clues Chaos might have left behind, after all – what better clue than Chaos himself? “ _Cloud_  defeated him alone.” Did missing memories make that much difference?    
  
“I don’t think… I don’t think Cloud  _expected_  to win,” Cecil offered tentatively.   
  
Squall stared at the paladin, waiting for him to explain.  
  
“I don’t know for sure, but after going through these isles-” He shivered. “I think I understand now, what they were thinking. That it was better to lose an inevitable fight on their terms than it was to persist in a world they couldn’t accept.”  
  
It wasn’t just Cloud he was talking about, clearly. “Golbez?” Squall asked carefully.  
  
The paladin hugged his knees – it made for a disconcerting image. “I couldn’t accept it. Even after understanding why he refused to join Cosmos, why he forced me to fight him. But I think they were the same, in the end.” He stared into the distance. “Giving it your best and failing was still better than just standing back and losing anyhow.”  
  
Except Cloud had beaten the odds, somehow. Twice.   
  
Squall remembered enough snatches of Garden to know when to cut his losses. To know what fights he could win alone, and what fights required backup and strategy, and when there was and wasn’t a choice. He’d seen his death in those glowing yellow eyes, and didn’t see the point in waiting for that prophecy to come true. “We still have options. They didn’t.”  
  
“But Golbez  _did_ ,” Cecil insisted. “That we’re here now, that we defeated Cosmos – doesn’t that prove it?”  
  
Squall shrugged. “You fought on her side, remember.”  
  
Cecil nodded solemnly. “I felt like I failed him. I took his life for a cause I still lost.” He sighed. “I ran off to look for him like a fool – he’s not been revived, or he would have come after us. That’s who he was. If I really wanted to honour his sacrifice, I would keep fighting regardless. Even after losing. Even after failing.”  
  
A prickle of discomfort ran along Squall’s skin. This was getting far too emotional for him. But more than that…  
  
There was danger here, somewhere.  
  
Carefully, he shoved himself to his feet, and sought for a change of topic. “How did you find me here, anyway?” He wasn’t complaining – he might have died alone in the dirt if not for Cecil’s timely arrival, but this world was far too large for such a lucky coincidence. He hadn’t thought there was anyone beyond stray manikins on the northern islands, much less an ally.  
  
“I was searching for any sign of Golbez, but I can see now the tracks I followed were yours.” He shook his head ruefully, beads in his white hair faintly jangling with the movement. “I’ve never been particularly adept at the art, else I might have guessed.”  
  
Considering Squall was half the size and didn’t  _fly_  – regardless, those errors had likely saved his life, so he kept his mouth shut. “We should regroup with the others,” he said instead.  
  
Cecil blinked. “That’s… unexpected, coming from you.”  
  
Squall bristled. “I know what I said, and did, but… together we were stronger. I get that. Strategically, it makes sense now we have more information.” He stared into the distance. “We’re all looking for the same thing, you realise. And when it’s all done…”  
  
Cecil followed his thoughts. “You thought it was better not to get attached, when we’ll have to part ways?”  
  
Squall shrugged.  
  
“You changed your mind, then?” Cecil ventured.  
  
“No,” Squall said curtly.   
  
It had simply happened anyway. Half a damn world away, when he realised he was a fighting a foe he couldn’t defeat alone, when he realised he might  _die_  alone, undiscovered, in a desolate gateway in a desolate universe, and all of a sudden all he could think about was Tidus’s irritating grin and Terra cuddling moogles and Cloud looking back at them to make sure they were all keeping pace. Remembering Onion Knight’s constant theorising and Cecil’s quiet brooding. And before that,  _Bartz, Zidane, Firion_ -  
  
“Just being practical,” he said. “They need to know that Chaos is back, and we need to figure out what we’re going to do about it.”  
  
His words haunted him, a mockery.   
 _  
“There’s nothing dangerous left aside from us_. _”_

 

…………

  

“This looks a bit like Sanctuary,” Tidus commented. “I didn’t realise gateways took in fragments of  _this_  world, too.”  
  
Cloud nodded, eyeing the faintly glowing rivers of magic floating through the air. “It’s unusual, but I’ve seen it before.  On the Northern Isles, especially in the deeper gateways. It’s like they loop back into reality after a while, to avoid spiralling forever.”  
  
“Very astute of you!” A third voice piped up behind them.  
  
They whirled, swords drawn. The moogle let out an ‘eep!’ and fluttered frantically out of reach.  “Uh, that is,” it continued timidly, “in some cases it’s merely reflections of fragments of this world from a different point in the time stream. But in the case of this gateway, it functions as a prison by creating a loop-”  
  
“You must be the Mured Moogle!” Tidus exclaimed. Then, “Wait, a prison?”  
  
“Oh! Not for you. But I’m afraid I’m quite unable to perceive the pathway from this place myself, and even if I could, in this form there is little I could do about the manikins beyond-”  
  
“We cleared out the manikins!” Tidus reported cheerfully. “But do you mean you’re not really a moogle?”  
  
Cloud eyed him more carefully. Physically, there was nothing different between him and any other moogles in this world.  But he didn't talk anything like the usual moogles, who attached 'kupo' to almost every sentence like some kind of exclamation mark.  
  
“This is not my original form, no,” he confessed. “I was trapped in this body, then sealed here.”  
  
“By who?” Tidus asked.  
  
“By ShinRyuu.”  
  
Even Tidus didn’t have a response for that.  
  
They’d all seen the dragon sweep the skies, impossibly huge, impossibly powerful, a being of fire and light that seemed less a dragon and more a force of nature.  
  
“Why did ShinRyuu do that?” Cloud asked, shifting his weight slightly, just in case he needed to fight. Even killing Chaos and Cosmos hadn’t turned the dragon’s eye directly on him. What could  _anyone_  have done to earn its ire?  
  
The moogle’s bobble twitched as he looked at him. "Oh,  _you_.  You've been here a long time, haven't you?"  
  
“Something tells me you’ve been here longer.”  
  
The moogle drooped midair. “You aren’t mistaken, although it was only very recently I was forced into this form. Before, I was merely a spectator. But well… it was you, actually, who inspired me to finally act.” He fidgeted. “I had a pact with ShinRyuu, the same as Chaos and Cosmos. By choosing to act, I broke that pact, and this is my punishment.”  
  
A pact. With  _ShinRyuu_. “What did you do?”  
  
The moogle fluttered over to a small, smooth rock, settling on it. “I suppose… yes, I suppose you of all people, deserve the truth.” He sighed. “It’s difficult to know where to start.”  
  
“How about your name?” Tidus prompted.  
  
“My name is Cid. I was a scientist of Lufenia.”  
  
Blood roared in Cloud’s ears.  
  
A  _scientist_.  
  
“It was  _you_ ,” he said, fingers tightening on the Buster’s Sword’s hilt. “ _You_ were the one who made them.”  
  
“Cloud, wait.” Tidus grabbed his shoulder. “Let’s just- let’s hear him out, okay? Remember what we came here for.”  
  
Cloud remained stone-faced.  "I don't like scientists.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Cid assured Tidus. “His reaction is… deserved.” He turned to Cloud. “Although I was not the one who created Cosmos. Chaos, yes – he was the result of mine and my wife’s experiments with materials extracted from the Interdimensional Rift, married with Lufenian engineering. He was, in many ways, our son. But Lufenia…” He hunched in on himself, bobble dropping. “Ours was a world at war. And his potential, you see. It was enormous. Even though we protested, they took him from us.”  
  
“Okay, so you’re sort of Chaos’s dad, kind of spooky, but then who created Cosmos?” Tidus asked, keeping a wary eye on Cloud.  
  
“They did. She is… she’s modelled after my wife.”  
  
“She looks like his mother,” Cloud murmured. “They used her to control Chaos.”  
  
Cid nodded. “Precisely.”  
  
“Okay, but how does ShinRyuu come into this then?” Tidus prodded.  
  
“My wife and I went to break him out when we discovered what the experiments and war were doing to him. However, in our attempt, my wife was killed. And in his rage, Chaos accidentally ripped open a portal to this world – this, empty mirror image plane of Lufenian, an anomaly in space and time. Cosmos and I fell into it with him. And that… that was when we met ShinRyuu. When we made the pact that started this whole cycle off.”  
  
“In exchange for power, Chaos and Cosmos would wage war with summoned champions from other realms. Chaos wanted the power to seek revenge on my homeworld. Cosmos was impelled to seek power to contain Chaos. I was a scientist, however, and ShinRyuu had no use for me, and I myself, in my grief, could not decide which side to throw my lot in with. Chaos was my son, but Lufenia, for all its faults, was still my home and I didn't wish to see it destroyed in his wrath. So in exchange for my physical body, I would watch the war from afar, and preform experiments and research as I pleased, in hopes that time and a proxy war would solve the conundrum for me. ShinRyuu would absorb the memories and power of the fallen soldiers, and begin the cycle again.” Cid’s black bat wings fluttered, but he remained seated. “I believe you have experienced the rest.”  
  
Cloud and Tidus stayed silent, absorbing that, until Cloud cleared his throat and asked, “How many?”  
  
Cid seemed to guess what he meant. “My memories are imperfect – being forced to this form lost me much. But this would have made the fourteenth cycle.”  
  
Tidus swore under his breath.  
  
"I owe all of you an apology,” Cid confessed. “But also my thanks. It wasn't until you acted that I truly realised what a horrible cycle we had created.” He shuddered, bobble quivering. "You were pawns, summoned across dimensions, to a conflict that had nothing to do with you.  For the sake of what?  Science? To fuel Chaos’s vendetta, or to help bring him back under control? Or simply as more fodder for a dragon hungry for conflict?"  The moogle folded his paws in his lap, despondent.  "We were engulfed in madness, and none of us could see it.  If it had continued further... who knows what might have happened.  Chaos's psyche had already begun to degrade by the twelfth cycle."  
  
"So I acted.  When you defeated Chaos, I took the opportunity to seal him away during the Purification, to disrupt the revival process and ensure he couldn't summon new warriors to begin the cycle anew.  I did the same to Cosmos when she fell.  If we must suffer for our sins for an eternity, best that we suffer alone."  
  
"But ShinRyuu was furious once he realised what I’d done.  He sealed me away in turn.  It's only a matter of time before he breaks Chaos and Cosmos free again."  
  
No one spoke for several long moments.  
  
“Then we should uh, get out of here while we can then, right?” Tidus asked. “If you’re implying that Chaos and Cosmos could come back at any minute, we need to meet up with our friends, pronto. If we bring you with us, you can leave, right?”  
  
“I suppose it is possible, yes, especially if you already destroyed all the manikins,” Cid agreed, but darted a nervous glance at Cloud.  
  
Cloud didn't want to commiserate with the moogle.  He didn't want to find sympathy with a scientist who had created atrocities just as bad - maybe even worse - than Hojo.  
  
"I can't forgive you," he said flatly.  "It's not just about us.  It's about what you did to Cosmos and Chaos as well. But Tidus is right, if what you’ve said is true we can’t waste any time here. Can you help us get home?”  
  
Cid seemed startled by the request. “Well, it’s – I know the theory of it, of course. There are some complications I would have to consider, especially given my current form, but I am certainly willing to  _try_.”  
  
Good enough for Cloud. Distrust and dislike, he could deal with – he’d been on Chaos’s side, after all, and that had been their primary currency. Even if this scientist stood a whole tier below in his esteem, he’d put up with it, if it meant they could finally leave this place.   
  
“Then let’s go,” he said. “And find the others before Chaos or Cosmos can find them.”  
  
Cloud was tired of this world.

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

It didn’t take long to find Onion Knight and Terra – or more accurately, for Onion Knight to find  _them_.  
  
The red-armoured knight dashed up to them, speaking rapid fire as soon as he was in ear-shot. “Thank Ifrit you’re still in the area look I’m sorry I took off like that but it was  _important_  and I found Terra and she’s better but you really need to know we found this weird gateway and I think Cosmos was reborn?”  
  
“Good to see you’re okay, squirt!” Tidus said, patting the kid’s helmet far more roughly than called for with a slightly vicious smile.   
  
“I  _said_  I was sorry!” he repeated, then narrowed his eyes at them. “You’re not surprised about Cosmos.” He peered around the blitzballer, spotting Cid. “You found the Mured Moogle?”  
  
“He was the one who warned us Cosmos and Chaos might still be around,” Cloud added stiffly. He softened his expression and nodded at Terra, who walked up to join them at a far more sedate pace. “Feeling better?” he asked in a low voice.  
  
“Yes. I’m sorry if I worried all of you,” Terra said.  
  
Cloud was mostly relieved  _that_  issue at least had worked itself out. He’d felt bad about not going immediately after her – maybe give her a durable target to release some of her energy on - but Onion Knight’s injuries had been the more pressing concern at the time, even if the knight in question hadn’t agreed.  
  
Then Terra caught sight of Cid, and her eyes grew starry, and she was lost to them.  
  
“Oh, uh, nice to meet you. My, this is awkward,” Cid squeaked as Terra caught the moogle in a fierce hug.  
  
A warning clambered in Cloud’s throat –  _he’s a scientist, he’s_ the _scientist_  – but didn’t escape beyond a clenching of his knuckles. He would settle for keeping his distance, and watching him for the slightest misstep.  
  
They took the time to exchange information as they made their way towards a teleport crystal Cid knew of that could bring them to the Northern Islands to track down the rest of their missing number. While Onion Knight was brimming with questions for Cid, Terra’s fawning over the moogle didn’t give him much time to ask. Cloud was mostly relieved they at least knew where Cosmos was. So long as she remained sealed within that gateway her influence on the world, and more importantly his existence, stayed null.  
  
None of them expected that could last forever.  
  
It was less than a day’s travel to the crystal – and it was barely in sight when it flashed, revealing two familiar silhouettes.  
  
“Cecil! Squall!” Onion Knight perked up, dashing ahead of them.   
  
“The gang’s all here, huh?” Tidus said, though his grin faded into a thoughtful frown. He shared a look with Cloud, who nodded minutely in response.  
  
Onion Knight and Terra hadn’t been far away to begin with, and knew where Cid’s gateway had been – running into them so soon wasn’t particularly suspicious. Squall and Cecil, though? They’d separated weeks ago. Even with a functioning teleport crystal nearby, he’d been prepared for a search of days, not hours.  
  
Cloud eyed the moogle hovering alongside them with fresh distrust.  
  
When the rest of them caught up, exchanging eager greetings, that concern deepened. Squall’s clothes were torn and blood-stained, though no visible injuries remained. Their nature was obvious at first glance, though. Claw marks. Far too large for any known manikins.  
  
Squall met his gaze, and wasted no time explaining.  “Chaos is still alive.”  
  
“Revived!” Cid corrected in a squeak. “He never could have been sealed away at full strength.”  
  
Squall’s stare shifted to the diminutive scientist. “You found the Mured Moogle after all then.”  
  
“He knows a lot,” Tidus supplied, and squinted at Squall, poking his shoulder experimentally. “Are you okay, though? Did you actually try to  _fight_  Chaos?”  
  
Squall ignored him, turning his attention back to Cloud. “When you fought Chaos, what was it like?”  
  
They all went quiet, awaiting his answer in rapt attention. Cloud averted his eyes. All things told, it had been a miracle he’d survived, never mind won. “You saw the fight with Cosmos. It was a lot like that, but more… physical, I guess.” He shifted uncomfortably. It was the first time any of them had asked about that battle so directly. “He was… overwhelming. To him, it was just sport, until suddenly it wasn’t. And that’s probably why I won.” He shrugged. “He underestimated me.”  
  
“Sport,” Squall muttered, then shook his head. “Chaos wasn’t – he was like a wild animal. Feral. All power, no reason.”  
  
“Cosmos too,” Onion Knight added, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “I grabbed Terra and ran for it before she could do anything but the impression I got was, I don’t know, machine-like?” He shook his head. “She was different. She didn’t resemble the Cosmos we knew. Didn’t even try to speak. It was a bit scary, actually.”  
  
“…How different are we, without memories?” Terra wondered. “When we first came here… all we did was fight. We didn’t start to question it until so much later.”  
  
Cloud remembered Tidus, when he first arrived. Barrelling after Jecht with single-minded ferocity, barely bothering to even learn his allies’ names. Terra’s blank gaze as she followed Kefka mutely. All of the warriors he’d fought, freshly summoned by Cosmos, throwing down to fight the second they realised he was the enemy. Never stopping, never asking, beyond the odd taunt in battle.  
  
It took time before they started to think, started to plan, started to act on anything more than base reflexes and instinct and orders from their patron deity. Even longer before they started to question.  
  
Cloud had seen the dragon’s coming more than once before he’d started.  
  
“Then this is…” Onion Knight murmured.  
  
“Someone _did_ get revived this cycle,” Cloud said, and his stomach churned as the depth of that revelation hit him. “They did. They’re – the same as us. They were revived, and lost their memories.”  
  
The seven of them stood in awkward silence. Cid’s wings fluttered a nervous beat in the background.  
  
“What do we do, then?” Onion Knight asked eventually. “They’re sealed for now, but if they break out-”  
  
“We deal with them, obviously,” Squall said. “That’s the whole reason I came back here. As a group, we can do it.”  
  
“But if we fight them what’s to say they won’t just revive  _again_?” Tidus argued.  
  
“No,” Cecil spoke up for the first time.  “No more fighting.”  
  
Cloud focused on him for the first time – Squall’s torn and bloody clothing had taken all the attention in their arrival. Cecil had seemed fine in his dark knight armour, his expression hidden to them, his voice deep and echoing within his helmet.  
  
Something was wrong.  
  
“What else can we do, though?” Terra asked softly. “If they break free…”  
  
Cecil’s posture tensed. “You would put them down again? Isn’t that just repeating the cycle?”  
  
“We just want to go home,” Onion Knight said. “We wouldn’t have had to fight the first time if Cosmos didn’t-”  
  
“I fought for Cosmos,” Cecil reminded them abruptly.  “If you won’t listen, then I will  _show_  you the strength of my conviction!”  
  
Cloud had drawn his sword on pure instinct – those extra few seconds let him catch the wicked black blade driving for his stomach and push it aside. He leapt back, barely keeping ahead of the dark knight’s rush, the ghostly memory of another cycle having him twist aside, avoiding the burst of dark miasma thrown off the tip of the blade.  
  
“Cecil?” Onion Knight yelped. “What are you doing?”  
  
“What I should have done from the start,” he replied, whirling and stabbing, each vicious strike punctuated by a burst of dark magic. Cloud swept it away with his buster sword, and the dark knight stumbled from the force of the blow.   
  
Then a flash of silver caught the edge of his vision, and Cloud stepped back, barely in time to avoid the gunblade bearing down between them. “Did you lose your mind?” Squall spat.  
  
“I know what I’m doing,” Cecil replied coldly, twisting away as the gunblade fired, the heat and light of the flash absorbed by his armour.   
  
“I know what you  _think_  you’re doing, and it’s stupid,” Squall hissed. “You don’t mean this. If you did, you would have left me to die outside that gateway.”  
  
“It was different, before I knew Cosmos had revived.” Cecil gathered dark energy in his spare hand, flinging it towards Cloud. The SOLDIER rolled to the side, and it sailed past, crackling in the air until it fizzled into nothing. “Even if it’s a fool’s errand, I choose my side. And I’ll fight for it.”  
  
“Cosmos is- was- dead!” Onion Knight shouted. “You say you want a world without fighting, but the only one fighting is  _you_!” He blinked at that.  “The only one-”  
  
“Don’t force us to do what Golbez forced you to!” Squall snapped, and slammed the flat of his blade against Cecil’s head. The dark knight stumbled from the force of it, and for the first time, stilled.  
  
“I…” His voice echoed strangely in his helmet, a whisper emboldened by its own reflections.  
  
Onion Knight ran in front of him. “Cecil, just stop and  _think_. You wanted a world without fighting, right? But what do you think would  _really_ happen if you won?”  
  
His grip tightened on his sword.  “It’s not about winning.”  
  
Squall took advantage of his hesitation and knocked him to the ground, pinning him with his gunblade. Tidus followed up, grabbing the dark knight’s free arm and holding it down. Cloud stayed carefully back, sword at the ready, just in case.  
  
Cid, on the other hand, flew closer, hovering above the fray, watching with now-obvious scientific analysis.  “I should have seen this coming,” he said.  
  
“Seen what coming?” Cloud asked.  
  
The moogle shook his head in worry. “This is ShinRyuu’s doing.”  
  
“Huh?” Tidus asked from where he and Squall were fighting to keep a struggling Cecil safely restrained.  
  
“ShinRyuu doesn’t want the cycles to end,” the moogle explained. “He needs conflict. The pact he made with Chaos and Cosmos ensured it. But for the first time, everyone left was working together.”  
  
Finally, Cecil stopped his struggles, though neither Tidus nor Squall let him up. “Can he do that?” Onion Knight asked. “Just…  _influence_  us like that?”  
  
“Cosmos and Chaos could,” Cloud remarked, eyes narrowed in thought. He looked to Tidus. “It’s been bugging me, what you said before. About how everyone was splitting off.”  
  
Cautiously, Tidus released Cecil’s hand, seeing that the dark knight was now paying more attention to the conversation than fighting. “You think it was more than just personality coming through?”  
  
Cloud didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to Cid. Suspicions he’d been slowly nurturing since they met the scientist were beginning to take shape. “It’s not Chaos and Cosmos who summon us directly, is it? Otherwise Cosmos would have known how to return us home, and Chaos could have returned to his homeworld for revenge whenever he wanted.”  
  
Cid hesitated, but admitted. “No, it isn’t. It is their power, but navigating the interdimensional rift like that is beyond them.”  
  
“That’s Lufenian technology, right?” He stared hard at the moogle, who wilted under his glare. “And you made a pact with ShinRyuu.”  
  
“Wait.” It appeared Onion Knight had caught on. He stared at the moogle with wide eyes. “You mean…”  
  
Cid sighed, bobble drooping. “It’s as you guessed. The pact I made with ShinRyuu, to allow me survival in this world… I gave him my knowledge. Of how to search the dimensions, and find suitable champions for his conflict.”  
  
Terra covered her mouth in silent horror. “No…”  
  
This was why Cloud hated scientists.  
  
“Wait,” Squall said. “Doesn’t that mean  _he_  can get us home? Who cares about Cosmos and Chaos if we can just leave right now?”  
  
“But if ShinRyuu can summon us back whenever he pleases,” Onion Knight said, voice hitching higher with every word. “It wouldn’t matter! We get home only to be yanked back here all over again!”  
  
They all fell silent at that. Trapped in a cycle, with no way out. Pulled back and forth at the whims of the gods.  
  
“…What can we do?” Terra asked softly.  “Is there even anything we can do?”  
  
Cloud stared up at the sky. Endlessly roiling grey clouds, trapped in an eternal dusk.  
  
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Cloud asked, hefting his Buster Sword back onto his shoulder.  "We have to kill ShinRyuu."

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

Cid let out the moogle equivalent of a squawk. “ _Kill_  ShinRyuu? You  _can’t_! Do you have any idea what sort of power- even Chaos did not compare! He’s a god!"  
  
Cloud stared up at the dull grey clouds swirling in the sky. "Chaos and Cosmos were considered gods, too."  
  
"But they received so much of their powers from the pact with ShinRyuu!"  
  
Cloud shook his head. "I don't believe it.  I've fought too many psychos claiming to be God."  
  
Cid wrung his tiny paws in despair.  
  
Tidus was the first to break the following silence, with a breathless laugh. “I kind of get it now, why you were the first one to take on Chaos.” He slammed his fist into his palm. “So we’re doing this right? Who’s up for some dragon hunting?”  
  
Terra clasped her hands to her chest. “We have to at least try, right? Or nothing will change.”  
  
Onion Knight gave them a shaky smile. “If we truly want to end this, I can’t think of any other way,” he admitted.  
  
Squall looked down at Cecil. “You still want to fight us?”  
  
Slowly, the dark knight shook his head. “I’m… sorry.” He sighed, releasing his dark armour and switching back to his paladin form. “I thought following through would have been what Golbez wanted – what he would have done. But I never wanted him to do that, and yet I very nearly repeated his mistake.”  
  
Satisfied, Squall stepped back, and offered a hand to pull the paladin to his feet.   
  
“If it’s any consolation,” Cid offered, “It wasn’t all you. It’s how ShinRyuu keeps the conflict going. He only needs a thread, a doubt. Something to magnify and influence until you’re not thinking straight, not quite yourself.”  
  
“He has the power to seal memories, after all,” Onion Knight mused. Then, anxiously, “Can he do that whenever he wants? How are we supposed to fight him if he just takes our memories away any time we get close? How can we know that we haven’t already-”  
  
“In all the cycles that have passed, I’ve never seen it,” Cid interrupted. “On a conscious mind, he only has influence.”  
  
“So don’t get knocked unconscious,” Squall said. “Got it.”  
  
“How do we find him, though?” Tidus asked. “Where does he  _go_  during the cycles?”  
  
A beam of light pierced the heavens. Purple lightning lashed the clouds, and the wind rose, a tornado rising to meet the parting grey. A flash of light, of fire, the rumble of thunder and the beat of wings, and slowly, the whirling form of an enormous, distantly familiar dragon began to take shape.  
  
“Are you kidding me? That’s all we have to do?  _Ask_  where he is?” Tidus shouted against the roaring wind.  
  
“Focus!” Squall snapped, grabbing the blitzballer and pulling him behind the hasty magic shield Terra and Onion Knight were weaving. Cid grasped at Terra’s cape, bat wings fluttering furiously against the raging winds.   
  
The dragon descended, coiling lazily in the sky before them. Then with laborious, painfully slow intent, ShinRyuu turned its head upon them.  
  
As suddenly as it spawned, the wind died to nothing, as though time had stopped on a pindrop. Cid let out a squeaky gasp. And across the distance, Cloud’s gaze met ShinRyuu’s glowing stare.  
  
He found his body frozen, held stiff by the  _gravity_  of the dragon’s mere attention. Golden eyes piercing into the back of his skull as though he was locked into glaring at the sun. Weight.  _Judgement_.  
 **  
Strong**.  
  
It wasn’t a voice, not really. It was a presence, meaning without clear words,  _ideas_ , pressure and understanding forced into a shape his mind could barely grasp.  
  
It shifted, somehow. Flashbacks, glimpses of memory. Countless warriors fallen beneath his Buster Sword. Cycles and cycles and cycles where he had not returned to the dragon’s embrace. Chaos’s pained, astonished laughter. Cosmos, felled.   
 **  
A pact** , ShinRyuu offered.  
  
“No,” Cloud gasped, and it felt like speaking the words into a vacuum, as though the mere act of talking sucked the sound away as quickly as his breath. Dimly, he was aware of the others shouting, their words whisked away into formless whispers by the weight of ShinRyuu’s regard.  “I don’t want-”  
 **  
An exchange** , he insisted. An image, then, a ghostly spectre in his mind’s eye.  _Tifa_.  
  
His breath caught.  
  
“For what-?” he croaked, the response nothing more than a reflex, a struck knee kicking out in response to pain.  
  
ShinRyuu didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. Vaguely, in the corner of his eyes, he could see Cecil, shaking his head weakly. Terra, hands over her eyes, glowing with the promise of transformation. Onion Knight, desperately tugging at her cape, mouthing words that didn’t reach his ears. Cid, cowering in the dirt at their feet.  
  
At his side, Tidus, teeth clenched and hands formed into shaking fists. Squall glaring defiantly at the dragon.  
  
The memory of Cecil, who had drawn his sword on him mere moments before. Gods reborn without their memories.  
  
Factions. Conflict. Pacts.   
 **  
Leader** , ShinRyuu breathed into his thoughts.  **Power**.  
  
He wanted a replacement. He wanted a replacement for Chaos and Cosmos.  
  
For a heartbeat, for an eternity, he wanted to say yes. It would be  _easy_  to say yes. ShinRyuu had found that longing,  _fed_  it until the pressure nearly made his head burst. It had been so long, so many cycles before she’d suddenly appeared before him, one of Cosmos’s, and then just as swiftly snatched away.  
  
Snatched away by this dragon, who now dared to offer her back.   
  
“I would  _never_ ,” he hissed from the effort of replying, “drag Tifa back into this hell. The only thing I want is for us to be able to  _go home_.”  
  
And like shattered glass, the spell was broken.  
  
“There’s no gods here,” he ground out, lifting his Buster Sword from his shoulder and holding it before him. "Our strength is not yours to take."  
  
ShinRyuu  _roared_.  It was an explosion of thunder in their ears, an earthquake that shook their bones.  _Unnatural_.  
  
The following burst of magic turned the sky white. Cloud hit the ground, ears ringing, some last desperate instinct shielding himself with the Buster Sword. The maelstrom of power burned on and on, scorching and freezing and electrifying in equal measure,  _pressure_  that crushed the air in his chest, and just when he started to think he could endure no more did it finally abate.  
  
The shattered fragments of Terra and Onion Knight’s magic shields hung in the air, fading shards of glass. Cecil’s dark armour was cracked and smoking – the paladin shed it a moment later, gasping for breath. Tidus and Squall were flat on the ground, covered in spent gunpowder – Squall’s own form of improvised shield.  
  
They’d barely had a chance to catch a breath when ShinRyuu’s maw stretched wide, and a glow grew bright in his gullet.  
  
The blast of light and fire that followed sent them scattering, fanning out and away as the scorching heat licked at their heels and singed the edges of their clothes. “Don’t get knocked unconscious!” Onion Knight shouted in warning.  
  
“Easier said than done squirt!” Tidus yelled back, dashing in, water sword bared, but forced to dance back as ShinRyuu spat an orb of fire at him.  “He’s  _huge_! How are we supposed to fight him when we can’t even get  _close_?”  
  
ShinRyuu was in the sky, casting magic and breathing fire that rent the heavens, while they scrambled on the ground like ants.  If they could at least get even his tail on the ground-  
  
Cloud sprinted, barely keeping ahead of the crackling fireballs ShinRyuu spat at him, each one as wide as he was tall, each hit exploding into a smoking crater at his heels. “The wings! Don’t hold back!” He shouted to Terra.  
  
In response, her form shifted – white and lavender fur sprouting in a ripple of light across her body, hair falling loose and sweeping back like behemoth’s mane. She glowed with power, rising in the air, gathering energy.  
  
“She needs cover!” Onion Knight called, pulling out a staff of his own and throwing a hail of magic towards ShinRyuu. If they couldn’t get close, they were stuck to ranged attacks.  
  
Cloud planted his feet, spun his sword, and called upon the strongest magic he could.  _Comet_.  
  
It wouldn’t do any real damage, not against a monster that size. But, just like Cosmos, it wasn’t something ShinRyuu could simply ignore, either. The dragon twisted midair, to avoid the worst of the hail of fire and earth, turning back, opening his maw, gathering power.  
  
“No you don’t!” Tidus crowed, slamming a blitzball so hard it caught fire mid-air. It rocketed into ShinRyuu’s jaw like a bullet – a pockmark of damage, but enough to snap his jaw shut in reflex, to buy those extra few seconds for Terra to act.  
  
The whine of magic died, and for half a breath, there was silence. Then- “ _We want to go home_!” Terra cried, and the esper let loose a blast of white-hot energy that sent shockwaves knocking the rest of them to the ground.  
  
ShinRyuu  _screamed_.  
  
The light faded, and the ground shuddered as the dragon crashed to earth. His wings torn and smoking, and for the first time the fire and light had faded, leaving behind only burnished blue and purple scales.  
  
Squall coughed amid the rising dust, clambering back to his feet. “Like this, you’re not so impressive. Nothing but an oversized dragon.” He armed his gunblade, and took off running for the fallen dragon. ShinRyuu hissed, enormous claws swiping at the swordsman, but his size worked against him now. ShinRyuu was  _slow_.  
  
Cecil and Cloud exchanged a glance, and a nod, following in Squall’s wake.  Terra and Onion Knight covered their approach with a hail of fireballs – Cloud swerved at the last second to avoid one of Terra’s, heels smarting from the heat. A wild swipe of ShinRyuu’s claws sent Cecil tumbling head over heels, but the paladin took only a breath to right himself before he was scrambling up the dragon’s leg, sword shining with light as he plunged it into a gap between the scales.  
  
The dragon roared, and writhed, and Cloud stared at the enormous tail sweeping towards him, tearing up earth as ShinRyuu thrashed. It slammed into him like a tidal wave – Cloud grit his teeth and latched on with his free hand, even as the earth fell away beneath his feet.  Distantly, to his right, the snap of gunshots cracked the air. Squall.  
  
Ignoring the ache in his ribs, he pulled himself up, dragging himself along the dragon’s tail to his back. ShinRyuu snarled, opening his mouth, beams of magic spilling from it like homing missiles. His crawl had to abruptly turn to a run, as he leapt and rolled to avoid the piercing streaks of light. One caught the edge of his legs, and it sliced and burned all at once. He stumbled, but then Squall was there, dragging him out of the way of the next as they ran across the iridescent scales of ShinRyuu’s body.  
  
They needed to get to the head.  
  
He caught Onion Knight’s eye down on the ground, pointed to himself and Squall, and then the back of ShinRyuu’s neck. The small knight’s eyes widened, but he nodded swiftly, saying something to Terra before dashing in towards the dragon.  
  
Bait and cover. Distraction. ShinRyuu might have an apparently inexhaustible well of power, but even he could only split his attention so many ways at once.  
  
Terra sent a barrage of icy spears towards the dragon’s eyes – ShinRyuu spat a ball of fire towards her in response. Cloud and Squall scrambled along the dragon’s back while he stayed distracted.   
  
Onion Knight dashed underneath, following Terra’s attack with a burst of lightning at ShinRyuu’s neck. As soon as the dragon’s head swung down to combat that new threat, Terra unleashed another hailstorm of ice. Two elements, two directions, staggered attacks. No way for ShinRyuu to counter both, much less worry about what the rest of his opponents were doing.  
  
Until ShinRyuu raised a foot, glowing with power, and smashed it into the ground.  
  
The earth shuddered and split, blasting waves of dirt into the air from the force. Onion Knight, caught in the blast, went tumbling to the ground. He laid still for several breathless seconds. Cloud froze.  
  
With a groan, the small knight sat up. Dazed and bleary, but still awake. But slow, too slow-  
  
“Squirt!” Tidus put on a burst of speed worthy of a SOLDIER, snatching up the small knight and pulling him clear moments before ShinRyuu’s jaws could snap shut over them.   
  
They’d reached the neck, where a trail of fur broke the pattern of scales. Squall darted forward, a step ahead of Cloud, racing for the head while their distraction still held. He raised his gunblade, preparing to the plunge it in the back of the dragon’s skull.  
  
Then their time had run out, and their diversion had failed. In one violent jerk, ShinRyuu tossed his head.  At the last second Cloud grabbed the mane of fur sprouting along the dragon’s neck, holding on for dear life as ShinRyuu roared and twisted angrily.   
  
Squall, though, was sent flying. Through the air, in front of the dragon’s eyes. In front of his jaws.  
  
“Squall!” Onion Knight shouted.  
  
The gunblader twisted mid-air – a spread of gunpowder, the click of a trigger – and an explosion bursting in ShinRyuu’s eyes.  
  
The blast threw him back, even as ShinRyuu screeched in agony, blinded. He hit the ground hard, body tumbling, and went still.  
  
Cloud waited.  
  
He didn’t move.  
 _  
Unconscious_.  
  
There was no more time. Cecil was thrown clear. Onion Knight and Tidus too far away. Squall down, ominous motes of light already beginning to drift around him. Terra exhausted, spent from matching the dragon’s inexhaustible magic.   
  
Only one chance.  
  
He moved on pure instinct. Buster Sword raised, pouring all of his energy into it, breaking all of his limits, until the edge of the blade shimmered pure white.  
  
“We’re done with your war,” he said, and slammed the blade into the dragon’s head.  
  
It was an old technique, the blade beam. One he’d spent  _ten cycles_  mastering.  
  
It cleaved ShinRyuu in two.  
  
The dragon fell as though in slow motion. Silent, enormous, and strangely weightless.  The body seeming to dissolve beneath Cloud’s feet, parting like a cloud of light.   
  
He leapt clear, and landed hard, sword at the ready even as his arms trembled with fatigue. He’d put everything into that attack. If this wasn’t-  
  
But ShinRyuu collapsed to the ground, body glowing. Dissipating.  
  
Dead.  
  
“You did it,” Cid said, fluttering over to them – the quiet awe in the scientist’s voice nearly masked by his moogle squeak. “You actually did it. I don’t believe it.”  
  
Cloud dragged in a painful breath, blearily checking the others. Terra, back to human form, exhausted but unharmed. Onion Knight wearily accepting an elixir from Cecil. Squall, blinking awake, using his gunblade to frantically lever himself back to his feet before realising the battle was over. Tidus flat on his back, chest heaving as he caught his breath.  
  
Burnt and bruised and bleeding and aching with weariness from pushing beyond their every limit – but they were  _alive_. And  _free_.  
  
“Wasn’t even… that bad… really,” Tidus panted.  
  
“There was six of us fighting together this time,” Onion Knight reminded him. “He never had a chance!”   
  
“Easy… to say now…. Squirt… but more than once… I was sure we would be toast.”  
  
For several long minutes, none of them did anything more than stare at where ShinRyuu’s enormous body had fallen, leaving no remains beyond some lingering motes of light and its impression in the ground.  Just  _breathing_. Being  _alive_.  
  
A cool, gentle breeze rolled across the plain.  
  
“What now?” Cecil eventually asked.  “Chaos, and Cosmos?”  
  
They looked to Cid. The scientist seemed to shake himself. “Without ShinRyuu’s power they’ll stay sealed for some time, and even if they still want to fight when they eventually break out… they won’t be able to bring anyone else into it.”  
  
“Is it okay, though?” Terra asked softly. “To just leave them imprisoned like that?”  
  
Squall scowled. “They didn’t  _have_  to accept the pact with ShinRyuu. They can take responsibility for the consequences.”  
  
It was clear by their faces that the others agreed, but equally clear none of them felt particularly good about it.  
  
“It may seem harsh to you,” Cid offered, not unkindly. “But truthfully, it might be the most peace and freedom they’ve ever had. No one influencing them, or using them. They can finally just… be. Without being tools for those who fancy themselves a higher power. Myself included.”  
  
Cloud stared out over the ruined battlefield. Smoke drifted from dying fires to join the endlessly grey clouds above. This world was empty but... in light of their origins, maybe it really was what Chaos and Cosmos needed. An empty world, to make  _theirs_.  
  
Cloud didn’t intend to stick around to see it.  
  
“We’ve done enough,” he said, hefting Buster Sword onto his shoulder. “…Let’s go home.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	8. BONUS CHAPTER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a collection of related giftfics set after, of our heroes travelling to find their way home. Consider it a mostly cracky, meta omake.

 

Zack’s attention was torn from the spectacle of Genesis fighting Sephiroth by a bright flash of light to the east.  He squinted, trying to see through the heat haze rising from the Midgar Wastes.  
  
“Something wrong?” Cloud asked from next to him.  
  
“Just thought I saw something.  Want to go check it out?”  
  
Cloud eyed the two sparring SOLDIERs.  It didn’t look like either of them would notice – or care – if they lost their audience.  Never mind this wasn’t what they’d come out onto the Wastes for in the first place anyway.  “Sure.”  
  
Zack led the way across the scorched earth and brittle shrubbery. As they got closer, he could definitely see a group of figures through the heat haze ahead.  But who else would be out on the Wastes, especially off the main roads?  
  
As they got closer, the blurry figures resolved into the oddest mix of people Zack had ever seen. A man with white hair - not silver, like Sephiroth's - dressed in ornate, medieval armour that looked like something right out of one of  _Loveless’_  many stage plays. A kid dressed in a bright red version of a similar style.  The girl could have stepped off circus ring. The leather-clad teenager with the scar on his face could have fit in with SOLDIER, or some of the edgier crowds in Sector 6.  There was a bleach blond guy too, looked like he could have come from Costa De Sol, even if his clothes were a bit eccentric.  
  
They were accompanied by - Zack squinted - was that a  _moogle_?  He’d never seen one in real life.  He’d always assumed they were just made-up creatures from children’s books!  
  
The weirdest part of  _all_ , though, was that  _Cloud_  was with them.  
  
Which shouldn't have been possible, because Cloud was standing right next to him.  Zack checked.  Still there.  Dressed in different clothes, too.  
  
"Hey Cloud, how many times, exactly, have you time travelled?"  
  
Cloud shook his head, looking confused and more than a little wary.  "It's not - that's not me.  I mean, it  _is_ , but he's younger I think.”  
  
Zack peered.  “How can you tell?”  
  
“The sword.”  
  
Right.  That Cloud was carrying the Buster Sword.  The sight of it sent an odd shiver down Zack’s back, especially since he carried that very blade on  _his_  shoulders.  
  
It was then that the strangers noticed them.  “Cloud!” the kid warned.  
  
Zack had a weird moment of disconnect, not sure exactly  _which_  Cloud the kid was talking to.  Weird.  Was this what it was like for Cloud and Spike  _all the time_?  
  
The Other Cloud turned, and froze.  
  
“...Zack?" he whispered, eyes wide.  
  
Now that they were closer, he could see the differences between them beyond the sword.  This one wore an outfit closer to that of a SOLDIER First Class – belt included - though his shoulder guard was an odd design, with blue gemstones set into the metal, and his shoes were a bone-white leather to match the studded collar his outfit sported in lieu of a turtleneck.  
  
But the greatest difference lay in the eyes.  He’d thought  _their_  Cloud had looked burdened by the world on his shoulders, but never had he looked that... weary.  That  _old_.  
  
“That’s me!” Zack replied cheerfully – the guy looked like he could use some extra cheer in his life.  And being cheerful, he’d found, made people a lot less quick to draw their swords on him.  “Who are these guys?”  
  
The Other Cloud just stared, apparently rendered mute by shock.  Zack leaned around him slightly to quirk an eyebrow at his companions, who were all watching  _his_  Cloud in confusion, but were quick to rally at his attention.  
  
“Cecil,” the knight in white introduced himself.  He nodded at the one Zack had mentally dubbed the beachcomber.  “This is Tidus.”  
  
“Hey!” the bleached blond gave him a cheerful wave.  Zack grinned and waved back.  He had a feeling he could get to like that guy.   
  
Cecil gestured to the kid in red next.  “This is Onion Knight.”  
  
The kid nodding in greeting, though his eyes were busy flitting between the two different Clouds, bright with curiosity.  Zack scratched his head.  “That’s your  _name_?   _Seriously_?”  
  
“Title,” the kid explained succinctly.  
  
Right.  Like a Doctor or a Professor maybe.  Some of the eggheads in the science department – some of them in the  _infirmary_ , even – could get a bit tetchy if you didn’t use their title with their name.  Zack decided to humour him, and glanced at the girl next.  
  
“Terra,” she said softly, turning away slightly.  Shy.  He gave her a bright grin, and looked at the last of their party.  
  
The teen scoffed and folded his arms, looking away in deliberate disinterest.  “The grumpy one is Squall,” Tidus provided, and earned a scowl for his efforts.  
  
“Great!”  Zack clapped his hands and rubbed them together.  This was  _exciting._   “So, where exactly did you guys come from?”  
  
The group as a collective glanced at their Cloud.  Who had moved from numb shock to simply looking lost.  “How…?”  
  
“I’m guessing I’m not still around where you’re from, huh?  The answer is-” Here Zack paused for dramatic effect, “-Time travel!”  
  
That received less of response than he’d expected.  Zack had been waiting for gasps, or denials, or even laughter.  Instead, there was only a brief pause.   
  
“…Squall?” Onion Knight eventually asked.  
  
The leather-clad teenager looked irritated.  “What makes you assume  _I_  know anything about it?”  
  
“You  _are_  kinda the expert in time travel here,” Tidus pointed out.  
  
The Other Cloud, though, had finally turned his frankly unnerving stare on his opposite.  “Cid,” he said in a low voice.  “Does this mean that we’re…”  
  
“Copies?” the girl finished softly.  There was a sort of horrified, dawning suspicion breaking over the ranks of the group.  They all started talking at once, growing visibly agitated.  Kind of the reaction Zack had been expecting to the time travel quip, actually.  
  
“You mean we could never-”  
  
“What are the manikins then?  Are we just like-”  
  
“Where can we  _go_  if-”  
  
The moogle flitted to the front.  “No!  This is something else entirely!  You’re not copies - we’ve made a mistake in the jump somewhere!”  He started flying in a restless loop, the aerial equivalent of pacing.  "The difficulty is that we do not have to travel through just dimensions, but also time.  Our first attempt to return Squall to his world has destroyed my calculations - the time compression we stumbled upon must have thrown everything off!"  
  
Squall folded his arms, face twisted with a scowl.  "Excuse me for saving the world from an evil time witch."  
  
This was a really weird group of people.  “Soooo,” Zack ventured, “You  _are_  time travellers?”  
  
“We were summoned from our worlds to fight in the battle between Chaos and Cosmos,” Cecil explained.  “We are attempting to return home.”  
  
“But it’s not as simple as just finding the right world,” Onion Knight cut in.  “Since we’ve been there… kind of a long time.”  
  
Which incidentally,  _didn’t explain anything at all._  
  
“We’re in the wrong time branch,” Cid-the-moogle finally concluded, and turned his beady black gaze on them.  “And far too early, but that doesn’t explain your counterpart’s age…”  
  
Cloud finally spoke up.  “Like Zack said.  Time travel.”  
  
“I see, I see,” the moogle nodded to himself thoughtfully, muttering about dimensional branching and energy output and wormholes.  
  
The Other Cloud stepped forward, oddly hesitant.  "Tifa?" he asked, voice almost hoarse.  
  
Cloud shook his head.  "Just a teenager, back in Nibelheim."  
  
The Other Cloud closed his eyes, a mixture of pain and relief shadowing his features.  Cecil placed a sympathetic hand on his back.  
  
The sound of approaching footsteps broke the strained silence that had fallen.  “What is this, then?” Genesis demanded, then abruptly halted when he caught sight of  _two_  Clouds – two  _adult_  Clouds, at that.  He whirled on Cloud, and demanded, “Exactly how many times have you time travelled?!”  
  
“I haven’t.”  Cloud looked like he was on the verge of developing a headache.  
  
The travellers, however, had tensed as a unit, laying their hands on their weapons.  Genesis, Zack and Cloud all responded by tensing in turn, but their gazes weren’t focused on  _them_ , but on a point  _behind_ them.  
  
Tidus all but snarled as he drew an odd sword that looked almost as though it were made of  _water_.  “ _Sephiroth_.”  
  
Sephiroth paused in his approach, immediately wary.  
  
Before anyone could say anything, the Other Cloud leapt into action, all but a blur.  Their Cloud moved to counter, but one vicious swipe of the Buster sword had sent him stumbling out of the way –  _and Ifrit that was scary,_ nobody _could counter Cloud like that_  – and it was all Sephiroth could do to draw Masamune in time to save his life.  
  
Then Squall was rushing in, and Sephiroth was retreating, trying – and failing – to fend off two swordsmen at once.  The girl had started gathering magic –  _where was her materia?!_  – and Genesis rushed to pull up a Magic Barrier, and the kid had suddenly pulled a knife and was running for Sephiroth too,  _and damn he was fast_ , Zack tried to block him but he just darted around him like it was  _nothing_ -  
  
Then he took a deep breath, and yelled, “ _EVERYBODY CALM THE HELL DOWN!”_  
  
The battle abruptly stilled.  
  
“What are you guys  _doing_?” he demanded.  “You can’t just barge into someone else’s dimension and starting killing people!”  
  
“But it’s  _him_ ,” Tidus seethed – every trace of the cheerful beachcomber of earlier gone.  “He killed the rest of our comrades!  He killed  _my dad_!”  
  
Zack gaped, and turned to the General.  “Wow Sephiroth, you’re a dick in  _all_  dimensions, aren’t you?”  
  
“Except this one, apparently,” Sephiroth replied dryly.  Genesis made an unsavoury remark under his breath that in the spirit of the situation, everyone ignored.  
  
The group of strangers were all looking to the Other Cloud.  Zack guessed he was de facto leader – although there seemed to be as much  _fear_  as there was respect in their eyes.  Consequently, the rest of  _them_  looked to him as well, awaiting his decision.  
  
The Other Cloud stared at his counterpart for a torturously long moment.  After what felt like an eternity, he uttered only one word.  “Why?”  
  
Zack didn’t need to be a genius like the General to hear the rest of that sentence.   _Why aren’t_ you _trying to kill him too?_  
  
Sephiroth – with both a Buster sword and some weird sort of gun and sword hybrid pointed at his neck, began to look vaguely concerned at his character reference being provided by a man who had, in the past, done his utmost best to do just that.  
  
Fortunately, Cloud just sighed and shook his head.  “It’s a long story.  But you don’t have to worry, I promise.”  When the rest of the strangers didn’t shift their stances, he added, “I’ll take responsibility.”  
  
Reluctantly, the Other Cloud withdrew, slowly lowering his Buster Sword and stepping away.  After a beat, the others did too, though Squall and Tidus both wore stormy frowns over it.  
  
The two groups faced off, previous curiosity and camaraderie replaced by wariness.  Zack, for his part, couldn’t decide who bore the closest watching.  The kid was impossibly quick for someone who definitely wasn’t mako-enhanced, and the girl had been cooking up some serious magic if Genesis’s reaction was anything to go by, not to mention that Other Cloud who was apparently more than a match for  _their_ Cloud…  
  
The tension was broken when the moogle suddenly did a somersault in the air.  “That’s it!  I think I’ve figured it out!  I’m fairly certain I can lock onto Tidus or Terra’s world from here!”  
  
“Do Terra’s first,” Tidus said, breaking his glare from Sephiroth.  “I’m not in any big rush to get home.”  
  
Zack wondered if anyone else heard the odd undertones to those words.  
  
“Okay, then, if everyone’s ready, gather around,” Cid ordered.  Onion Knight and Terra shuffled over next to the moogle.  Squall scowled, but joined them, keeping a wary eye on Sephiroth all the while.  
  
Cecil – who had been pretty well-behaved, compared to the rest – hesitated, then asked, “What about you, Cloud?  Are you going to stay?”  
  
The Other Cloud glanced over at him.  Zack kept still under the heavy gaze – it felt a hundred years old, a terrifying kind of weight to it, a yearning that felt as ancient and unmoveable as the earth.   
  
In the end, though, he shook his head.  “This place… this isn’t home.”  His stare moved to his counterpart.  “I’m going to find Tifa.”  
  
Those words seemed to serve as a signal, as the Other Cloud went to join his comrades, and a bright light began to grow.  With a flash that left him blinking, and the barest crack of displaced air, the travellers disappeared.  
  
Silence settled back over the wastes.  A mandragora scuttled across the ground, seeking cover in the tiny gaps of shade between the rocks.  The four SOLDIERs stood in the middle of empty space, the only sign it had been occupied mere moments before remaining in the scuffs in the dirt.  
  
“Well!” Zack declared brightly.  “That was interesting.”  


 

.....................

 

The sun sank into the horizon, the light turning both sky and ocean a warm gold. Yet another perfect sunset in the idyllic coastal town.

“ _The wind sails over the water’s surface_  
_Quietly, but surely…_ ” Genesis murmured, taking a long, deep breath. Even after several weeks, he had yet to tire of the clean, salty air. After years of living in dank caverns and ever-polluted Midgar, the subtle fragrances were wondrous to his enhanced senses.

His quiet repose was interrupted by a bright flash of light down at the beach. Too bright to be materia, but the wrong colour for fire and too diffuse to be artificial.

His brow furrowed, and his hand sought the reassuring presence of his rapier. The beach in front of the mansion was private, and though the building had been left empty for a number of years, the locals and tourists both had respected that. Cloud was due back, but he would be coming from the road, not the water.

It was thus only natural to investigate.

What he found, however, was nothing like what he’d expected.

It was Cloud after all, standing just beyond the shallows. That part, while unexpected, was not particularly surprising, although Genesis had not expected to see Angeal’s sword on his back instead of his beloved First Tsurugi. Had he made a detour to Midgar to collect it?

The trio of people with him, on the other hand…

One was a boy, dressed in bright red medieval armour and livery. He couldn’t have been any older than fourteen – even with the feathers in his helmet, he wouldn’t come up to Genesis’s shoulders. The others looked less strange – the bleach-blond man could have passed as any one of Costa Del Sol’s typical surfers, and the moody-looking brunet with the scar across his face was dressed wrong for the weather, but otherwise normal.

Their countenance seemed friendly enough, though, so he relaxed his guard. Marginally.

As he drew closer, their words came clear through the roar of waves. “-Might be Costa Del Sol,” Cloud was saying, which made hardly any sense without context.

“So we’ll need to travel to know for sure?” the kid asked. “I thought you said Edge.”

“This is annoying,” the moody one muttered.

“Hey, guys,” the surfer said. “Company.”

It wasn’t as though Genesis had been trying for stealth, so he simply called, “Care to introduce me to your friends, Cloud?”

Then Cloud whirled around, and all bets were off.

Genesis was intimately familiar with his partner's wardrobe, and nowhere in its depths were a pair of a bone-white leather boots, nor a shoulder pauldron set with turquoise gems. The outfit itself was also very much more SOLDIER than either of them sported these days - Cloud kept to the general style, but neither of them wore the stomach guard or suspenders anymore.

That wasn’t what most alarmed him, though. It was the eyes. More specifically, the complete lack of recognition in them.

“Do I know you?” Cloud asked, as guarded as when they’d first met.

This was the not the Cloud Strife he knew.

“What manner of trickery is this?” he snarled, readying a fireball with a flex of his fingers. A materia? A Confuse, perhaps, or a Charm. Or an imposter – a poor one. Or perhaps, most alarming, of all, a  _clone_?

“Sounds like he knows you,” the moody one said, drawing his sword too – though there was something odd about the blade, as though a gun had been forged into the hilt.

“Wait!” the kid interrupted, jumping between them so fast Genesis found himself lurching into a defensive stance at the unexpected speed. “We have to find out where we are, first!” He turned to Genesis. “It might be a little confusing for you, but we’re not your enemies!”

“I’m not so sure about that,” the not-Cloud said. “He looks like SOLDIER.”

“Explain,” Genesis threatened. “And you’d best make it  _swift_.”

“We’re dimensional-travellers. You know another Cloud Strife, right? But not one like him?” He gestured towards the not-Cloud.

Dimensional- “That’s preposterous.”

“Wait,” Cloud interrupted, brow furrowed. “I think I remember. One of the first worlds we stopped at. The one with Sephiroth. He was there.”

The trio eyed him thoughtfully now. Genesis did not extinguish the fireball still burning above his hand. “You’re right,” the kid agreed, then sighed. “And you didn’t know him in your original world, did you?”

“Aww, seriously?” the surfer burst out, facepalming so hard it looked like it hurt. “We’re in the wrong universe  _again_?”

“This is getting ridiculous,” the brunet muttered.

Cloud seemed to slump, though the gesture was so miniscule Genesis would not have noticed if not for his adrenaline-induced hyper-awareness. “Cid?” he asked in a low voice.

That was when Genesis noticed the moogle, which had apparently been hiding behind the surfer.  
  
Perhaps, on second thought, their stories of dimensional travel were not quite so preposterous after all. Not if they carried a  _summon_  with them, without the slightest sign of materia use.

“I don’t have the same sort of power as Cosmos or Chaos!” the moogle protested, wings fluttering in agitation. “Now that we’ve lost the point of origin, the calculations are extremely complex!”

“How far off are we, then?” the boy-knight wondered, then turned his gaze back towards Genesis. A thinker, he could tell that immediately. “How different is the Cloud you know from this one?”

The roar of a motorbike rose in the distance in a remarkable display of timing. Genesis smirked, and launched his fireball into the air, letting it explode. “You can ask him yourself.”

...

Cloud –  _his_ Cloud – took the news of their dimensional visitors in impressive stride. Genesis did suppose that it was not all that much more surprising than Sephiroth’s endless resurrections, or Reeve’s fortune-telling cat.

The sun sank below the ocean’s horizon as the strangers told their story, golden sunset replaced by lilac dusk. Their tale was as fantastical as the most epic of stageplays. A battle against gods that made Minerva herself look little more than a child, of countless worlds and dimensions pillaged for their champions, of pawns struggling against their mighty masters.

Were he not faced with incontrovertible proof, in a breathing, talking moogle, and another battle-weary Cloud Strife, Genesis would have thought it nothing more than fiction. Some cynical part of him, bred by ShinRa's many lies,  _still_  suspected that they might be particularly talented and creative actors.

There was a thought. "We mustn't let ShinRa get wind of this."

"We don't intend to stay long enough for ShinRa to matter," the other Cloud answered. "Cid, how long until you're ready to go again?"

"I can jump us at any time if it's urgent," the moogle replied. "But we could simply wind up further from our next destination. Two or three days to refine our exact position relative to the multi-verse would be ideal."

The other Cloud nodded. "That shouldn't be a problem. This world seems peaceful enough. Unless…" He sent a questioning glance at them, and Genesis waved a dismissive hand in vague confirmation.

“For once,” the man who’d been introduced as Tidus remarked cheerfully. He slapped the boy – Onion Knight, an odd designation that had Genesis insatiably curious – on the back. “Cheer up, squirt, we’re at the beach! If we have to take a break, can’t ask for much better. It kind of reminds of Besaid.”

"I miss Terra and Cecil," Onion Knight groaned. For the first time, he sounded the age he looked.

"Be grateful they've found their way home," Squall said. "At this rate the rest of us will spend another hundred years wandering."

"It's mostly yours and Cloud's fault, you know," Tidus pointed out. "It only took four tries to get Terra to the right world, and two for Cecil. But any time we try to get either of you guys back we wind up lost in the multi-verse for weeks."

"If you wanted to go next then you should have said something," Squall stated flatly.

Tidus immediately backed up with his hands in the air and an oddly strained laugh. "Hey, it's cool, I'm in no rush! Besides, Cloud's been waiting to go home longer than any of us!"

"You have a point, though," the other Cloud admitted quietly. "We should get Onion Knight home next."

Onion Knight immediately changed his tune. "I'm fine! We should definitely get you home first. We wouldn't have even escaped in the first place if it weren't for you!"

"Cid?" the other Cloud asked.

The moogle's wings fluttered erratically, causing him to bob and weave in the air. "It's true that the aftermath of the time compression in Squall's world makes calculations difficult – without a window to view the possible realities, we may need to spend some time eliminating probabilities manually. And the dimensional divergence is also quite crowded in this region. Onion Knight's is a great deal simpler in comparison."

"Then it's decided."

"But Cloud, you-" Onion Knight began to protest.

"I've been gone for a long time," the other Cloud interrupted, and Genesis heard the weight of years in his voice, and saw eternity in his gaze. "A few more months is nothing." There was a finality to his tone declaring the conversation over.

An awkward silence settled over the group, heavy with the weight of loss and loneliness.

Wandering souls, without rest.

“You can stay at the mansion,”  _his_  Cloud eventually offered. “We have spare rooms. And I’m guessing you probably don’t have any gil.”

“We appreciate it, thank you,” Onion Knight politely replied.

The other Cloud’s eyes sharpened at the ‘we’, though, his gaze suddenly calculating as it flicked back and forth between his counterpart and Genesis, cataloguing how close they stood together, their arms brushing. Surprisingly cagey of him –  _his_  Cloud wouldn’t have noticed anything less than overt displays of affection.

His voice, however, was surprisingly rough when he asked, “What about Tifa?”

Genesis’s lips parted, ready to spew forth his opinion on  _that_  particular matter, but then he paused, and noted how the trio of travellers tensed at the question, watching  _their_  Cloud carefully for the response.

This Cloud Strife was as fascinating as he was unsettling. He still carried the same indefinable air, the same aura of quiet strength, but it was tempered with what Genesis could only describe as exhaustion.

Somewhere along the line, the stubborness and dogged persistence he saw every day in his Cloud Strife had become something robotic, something distilled and siphoned over time until only the very essence of it remained. Where he kept moving forward not from determination so much as the habit of it.

So instead of the aspersions resting on the tip of his tongue, Genesis merely explained, “She’s in Edge. She’s fine.”

His Cloud stared at him out of the corner of his eyes – curiosity and surprise, he knew, as Genesis was not particularly gracious on the topic of Tifa.

But Genesis had been in such a place before. In the face of endless adversity, the hero needed a quest, however illusory, however faint and thin a hope it might be.

This other Cloud Strife hung on by a single gossamer thread. Genesis would not be the one to cut it.

 

.....................

 

Sasune was quaint, in a word. Too backwater for Squall’s tastes. He would never in a hundred years admit it out loud, but he missed Garden and its modern conveniences. Enough of castles and barren wastelands already. He wanted an airship again.  
  
Cloud’s approach to the forest clearing was announced by the crush of dry leaves underfoot and the erratic flutter of Cid’s wings. “You’re already here then. Onion Knight asked after you.”  
  
“Drawn out goodbyes aren’t my thing.”  
  
Cloud shrugged a shoulder and didn’t press the issue. It was one of his qualities Squall had reluctantly come to appreciate.  
  
The silence stretched for several beats before Squall’s impatience kicked in. “Where’s Tidus?”  
  
“Down at the river. Wanted to freshen up before we go.”  
  
Taking his time, as always. Scoffing, Squall pushed off from his tree trunk and stalked into the forest. “I’ll go get him.” He’d take forever otherwise.  
  
Cloud simply nodded and let him go.  
  
The river wasn’t far, and there were only so many paths to it from Sasune. It wasn’t long at all until he spied a head of bleach-blond hair through the leaves. “Hey-”  
  
The SeeD cut himself off as he stepped past the tree line. Tidus stood by the river, as expected, holding his arm up to the sky as though to block the sun. But he looked almost transparent, pearly swirls of coloured light swimming across his skin and clothes, motes of light drifting upward.  
  
Then just as quickly, it was gone, and Tidus was blinking at him. “Sorry, did you say something?”  
  
“What the hell was that?”  
  
Tidus just grinned. “What are you talking about?”  
  
He stared at the blitzballer. The smile remained.  
  
_Whatever_. None of his business. Probably just his imagination anyway. “We’re ready to go.”  
  
“Already?” He stuck his hands in his pockets, face still tilted towards the sun, as though savouring its warmth. “Feels like we just got here.”  
  
They’d been there for three days already. Because Onion Knight had wanted to introduce all of his friends, and Cloud and Tidus were both too soft to just dump the kid and go.  
  
The blitzballer bent over the river, looking into the depths. “Did you know there are fish in here? I wonder if we could catch some. There might not be food in the next world.”  
  
“If it’s the wrong world we’re not likely to stick around long enough for food to be a problem.” And knowing Onion Knight, he had probably thought ahead and foisted supplies onto Cloud anyway. “…Are you done? Today would be nice.”  
  
“Yeah yeah, I’m coming. Let’s go.”  
  
Cloud was still waiting when they arrived back in the clearing, and greeted them with nothing more than a short nod. Cid bobbed in the air, tiny purple bat wings fluttering to keep him improbably aloft. “Tidus next, then? I already have the calculations.”  
  
The pause before Tidus answered stretched several beats too many to be natural. Then, like flicking a switch, a smile spread over his face. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it’s about time.” His sentence ended strangely soft, almost as though he was talking to himself. He shoved his hands in his pockets, staring up at the sky again, the sun leaving patterns on his face through the leaves. “Gotta say though, I’ve kind of enjoyed it.”  
  
“You’d be the only one,” Squall muttered sourly. Tidus just slanted him a cheesy grin. “Cid, get on with it.”  
  
The moogle didn’t need any further prompting. The forests of Sasune dissolved into a whirl of colours and light, passing in a dizzying rush. For several long moments they were airless, weightless, and wrapped in stifling silence, before it slammed back into them all at once, heat and scent and sound, cloyingly humid air and bright sunlight and the crash of waves on an ocean shore.  
  
They landed on a beach ringed with sickeningly bright greenery, sunlight dancing on dappled waves. The sand beneath his boots was nearly white, the air a strangely sweet mix of fragrant pollen and ocean brine.  
  
“First try, huh? You’re getting good at this, Cid.”  
  
“…Tidus?” There was a note of alarm in Cloud’s voice that had Squall whirling around with his gunblade half-drawn.  
  
There was no enemy though. Simply Tidus, surrounded by trailing motes of light. Like opalescent fireflies, drifting from his body.  
  
“Ah, yeah. I guess this is where we say goodbye, right?” Tidus hooked his strangely transparent –  _fading_  – arms behind his head and grinned. “It’s been fun. Hey Cid, don’t let these guys get too gloomy okay? I know you’ll make it back.”  
  
This didn’t sound right. Not like the other goodbyes. “What are you-?”  
  
“We’re back. This is my world. We’re in the right place,” Tidus said, as though that explained everything.  
  
Squall didn’t get it, but the sudden tension in Cloud’s posture suggested that  _he_  did. “Tidus.” There was an odd thread of urgency to his voice that Squall had never heard before. “Your story – how does it end?”  
  
“My story?” Tidus’s grin didn’t falter, even as his form faded further. “…My story has already ended.”  
  
Then Squall got it.  
  
He remembered now where he’d seen something like those mysterious lights before. Around Jecht, when Chaos’s power was fading from the world.  _Pyreflies_ , he’d called them.  
  
“Why did you say anything?” Squall demanded.  
  
“Didn’t want to be a downer. Besides, not like it could change anything, right?”  
  
All those times when he’d dragged his feet, or cajoled them into staying in one of the nicer worlds for just one more day. “Idiot. You could have kept travelling with us. Could have stayed in one our worlds.” Sasune, or Baron, or hell, even Balamb Garden.  
  
“Nah. It was all borrowed time, right from the start,” Tidus said. “Just… I wanted to go for as long as I could, you know? But I was cutting it a bit close. Didn’t want to risk fading in another world. I have to go back to the Farplane eventually.” He shrugged and tossed them another easy smile. “The dream has to end someday.”  
  
“Tidus-” Cloud started.  
  
“No drawn out goodbyes, right?” He waved a nearly transparent hand. “See ya!”  
  
Then he was gone in a burst of pyreflies, and they were left only with the sound of crashing waves.

 

.....................

 

The vast structure sat on the lakeshore, swathes of pearl white curves and pale blue contours that made up the building, crowned with the elaborate spoked halo that inspired its logo. Balamb Garden.  
  
Home.  
  
Squall didn’t dare hope just yet – there had been others worlds they’d stumbled upon, where Garden sat deserted or defunct, where he was a stranger supposedly native to Esthar, where Seifer had never come under Ultimecia’s thrall… things that were never quite apparent until they actually met some people.  
  
But the rush of memories flooding through his head at the sight made him suspect that this might finally be the one. Onion Knight had been sure when they’d found his home – so had Terra, and Cecil. That same certainty stirred in his chest. The air tasted right. Everything just  _fit_.  
  
He’d obviously been still for too long, as Cloud quietly offered, “Want to take a closer look?”  
  
Squall nodded curtly, and led the way without another word.  
  
They didn’t have to go far. They were barely halfway across Garden’s court when they were spotted.  
  
“Squall!” a familiar cry echoed across the courtyard, followed by excited barking, and then suddenly she was there. Rinoa, throwing himself towards him.  
  
He caught her in his arms. Closed his eyes, for just a second, and breathed deep.  
  
He’d remembered her earlier, of course. Glimpses, snatches of knowledge, all carefully buried in the interest of focusing on the mission. But he’d never remembered enough to realise how much he’d come to miss her.  
  
Then somewhere to the side, he heard Selphie’s surprised exclamation, “A sorceress?!”  
  
“Don’t worry Squall, we got this!” Zell charged in, fists raised.  
  
Cloud, being Cloud, side-stepped with unnatural swiftness, leaving Zell stumbling and swearing. A whip snapped at his feet, winding around his ankle. The crack of a gunshot rent the air, and he leapt sideways, leaving Quistis staggering as her whip was wrenched out of her hands.  
  
“What?” It took Squall a few second too long to process. The glowing eyes thing. He’d forgotten about it – it had been quite a few worlds since it had been an issue. “He’s a  _guy_.”  
  
“Adel looked like a guy!” Zell protested.  
  
“He’s not a sorceress! Stand down and stop overreacting,” he ordered. Reluctantly, his friends lowered their weapons. Rinoa clutched his arm a little tighter, squinting at Cloud in a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. Angelo sat growling by their feet. Cloud, for his part, stood at a wary distance and said nothing.  
  
“ _Overreact_? We thought you’d been kidnapped and then this stranger turns up with glowing eyes and what’s with that, if he’s not a sorceress what  _is_  he?” Selphie berated him.  
  
They thought he’d been kidnapped.  _Him_?  
  
“I wasn’t kidnapped. It was a mission,” he said. “Classified.”  
  
“There’s no mission so classified you can’t at least warn your friends and colleagues that you’re going disappear for a  _month_. Laguna had half of Esthar’s forces out looking for you.” Quistis informed him with a smile that was pure ice. “That’s irresponsible, Squall. I thought I taught you better.”  
  
A month? He glanced at Cid, who shrugged, as much as a moogle  _could_  shrug, as though to say ‘ _close enough_ ’.  
  
“Yeah, back to the point, if he’s not a sorceress, who or what are these guys?” Zell demanded.  
  
“Part of the mission,” he said, and didn’t bother introducing them. He carefully extracted his arm from Rinoa’s hold, unable to restrain the quirk of his lips at her pout. “Give us a minute.”  
  
He stalked to the other end of the courtyard – not out of sight, but enough to be out of earshot. Cloud trailed him, keeping a careful eye on the SeeDs watching his every move like unnaturally attentive moombas.  
  
“This is your world then?” Cloud asked.  
  
Squall nodded. “As sure as I can be.”  
  
There were still gaps in his memories. It was impossible to tell if they were due to the Guardian Forces, though, or still lost to that world. But Selphie’s grinning face, the softness of Rinoa’s hands, Irvine tilting his hat in greeting as his gaze passed over them – it felt right. It  _fit_.  
  
Cloud stared past him, at his fellow SeeDs gathered in the courtyard, and the growing crowd of students looking on from the fringes. The faintest of smiles graced his face. “Looks like you were missed. The others would have liked to see this. Might have ruined your image a bit, though.”  
  
Squall scowled. Nobody ever expected it from him, so it always caught him off-guard when he realised Cloud would  _tease_  them. “Very funny.”  
  
Cloud shrugged it off. “We’ll be on our way then. Seems like we could cause trouble if we hang around.”  
  
It wasn’t any of his business. But they’d been comrades, of a sort, for a long while now. And… despite their beginnings, Cloud hadn’t been terrible company. Less irritating than some of the others, for sure.  
  
Tidus’s grin still haunted him.  
  
So he asked, as an aside, “You going to be okay, on your own?”  
  
“He’s got me, you know,” Cid pointed out, wings fluttering in indignation.  
  
Squall eyed the moogle dubiously. He and Cloud weren’t exactly bosom buddies, after all. “But it could be…” Weeks? Months?  _Years_? There was no way of knowing. It had been long enough, just to find his place in the messed up timeline of his world.  
  
Even he thought it unfair that the rest of them had returned, when the one who had been waiting  _decades_  had further yet to travel.  
  
“It’ll be fine,” Cloud said quietly. “…You should go. No long goodbyes, right? We’ll head out before we leave so you don’t have to answer any awkward questions.”  
  
Squall nodded. “Good luck.”  
  
It was a strangely uneasy feeling, though, watching him walk away, that enormously heavy sword slung on his back. Not knowing how long he’d be wandering alone, in any number of dangerous worlds, without backup.  
  
For the first time, he thought he might understand, just a little, how Rinoa, and Zell, and all his other friends in Garden felt when he took off on his own. How his comrades back in that world must have felt, too.  
  
Squall scoffed at the thought. Cloud was more than capable. If he’d lasted this long, he’d trust he’d last long enough to find home.  
  
That’s what comrades were supposed to do, after all. Trust each other to come through.

 

 

.....................

 

 

Cloud’s breath caught in his throat.  
  
Tifa crossed her arms in the doorway to Seventh Heaven. “Where have you been all week? I’ve been calling for ages!” Her voice was harsh, cross with anger and worry. But her expression was filled with nothing but relief. “I was  _this_  close to sending the others out looking for you!”  
  
A week.  
  
To Tifa, it had only been a week.  
  
Even having clung so fiercely to those precious memories, faced with reality once again, he could scarcely remember how to reply. It was almost impossible to do anything more than drink in the sight of those deep brown eyes and drown in the sound of her voice. When had been the last time he’d spoken with Tifa? Beyond those few brief words exchanged after he’d rescued her from Sephiroth, when she hadn’t even known his name.  
  
“Sorry,” he eventually mustered. The word felt tiny and weak. Insufficient.  
  
She’d already moved on. “What are you wearing?” Her relief and irritation were immediately replaced by puzzlement. Cloud glanced at his shoulder pauldron, laden with sapphires, and his bone-white leather boots. Right, trades from the moogles. He’d been wearing them for years. He couldn’t even remember what clothes he’d arrived with anymore. Before he could think of an answer, Tifa continued, “And is that a moogle?”  
  
That, at least, he could answer. “…He’s a summon.” It had been their fall back explanation in all of the worlds without moogles. Nobody had questioned it so far.  
  
“Oh! Is that what kept you? Better not tell Yuffie you found a new materia, or she’ll try to steal it from you.” The trill of phone inside snatched Tifa’s attention away from them. “Sorry, I should get that, I’m expecting an order…” Her voice trailed off as she disappeared back inside.  
  
Cloud didn’t want to let her out of his sight – some part of him terrified that she’d vanish once more, gone in a sweep of Shinryuu’s tail, and he’d wake up back in those endless empty plains covered by eternal cloud.  
  
But as far as Tifa was concerned, he’d only been gone a week, so he let her go and struggled not to follow.  
  
“Does she remember?” Cloud asked Cid in a low voice. Was it even the same Tifa he’d failed to rescue from the cycle?  
  
Cid’s bobble wobbled back and forth. “I’m afraid if she fell in the cycle previous, she would have lost all memories of the experience. It’s possible that over time she may regain snatches of it, but outside of that world…” He sank in the air. “Shinryuu claims the memories there as his right. You have to… earn them back, is probably the best way to put it. By fighting and surviving. I’m sorry.”  
  
“No.” Cloud closed his eyes. “Better that way. She shouldn’t have to…”  
  
Shouldn’t have to be like him. She’d not been in the cycle for nearly so long, but better to spare her those memories.  
  
No comrades to miss. No regrets. No pointless, endless battles to haunt her nightmares.  
  
“What are you going to do now?” Cloud asked.  
  
The moogle looked pensive. “Are you certain it’s the right world this time?”  
  
“As certain as I’ll ever be.” At the following silence, he offered, “I may have regained my memories, but…”  
  
“It was a long time ago,” the moogle interjected in understanding. “So long as you’re satisfied, then… I suppose it’s time I go back to Lufenia. Perhaps there, I will be able to find a way to return to my own body.” He chuckled, the sound pitched too high for its gravity. “Although I suppose a part of me has become rather used to this form.”  
  
“You’ll be okay on your own then?” Past resentments aside, they had been allies for many months now. And Cloud never would have made it back without him.  
  
“Lufenia is difficult to get to, but it’s unique. A fixed point in time and space. With the powers reclaimed from Shinryuu, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Cid assured him. He hesitated, then added, “For what little it’s worth, I would apologise on behalf of Lufenia, Cloud, for-”  
  
Apologies were meaningless at this point. He cut the scientist off before he could go any further. “Just make sure it never happens again.”  
  
“Of course. On that, you have my word.”  
  
He and Cid had reached an understanding long before they’d left that world. Now, there was nothing more to be said. “Good luck.”  
  
Then with a flash of pearlescent light and a short wave, the moogle vanished.  
  
“Cloud?” Tifa asked. She stuck her head back through the door, pausing when she found him alone. “Where did the moogle go?”  
  
“He had to go home,” Cloud said. “Sorry. We probably won’t see him again.”  
  
Tifa blinked in confusion, but shrugged it off. Life in AVALANCHE made them blasé about such oddities. “I was about to say before we were interrupted – Lunch is starting soon, if you want to join us. Yuffie and Red are visiting too.”  
  
It took several seconds too long to process the names. Longer yet to draw up hazy memories of the associated faces. “Sure. I’ll be right there.”  
  
She gave him an odd look, but with a brief smile disappeared back inside.  
  
Cloud dragged in a long breath and held it. Cataloguing scents both oddly new and distantly familiar. The air was sharp in his lungs, and the sunlight warm on his back. Real. A hundred worlds removed from an empty dimension filled with endless grey clouds and crystalline monsters.  
  
He shook the memory off, and reached for the door.  
  
He had a life to get back to.  
  
He only hoped he could remember how.  


 

 


End file.
